One whodunita contraction of “Who [has] do it? ” ” that he has done ? », carried by a five-star cast! SuspicionAmerican remake of the captivating Israeli series False Flag, begins with the kidnapping of the son of an influential American businesswoman (Uma Thurman) from a hotel in New York. Quickly, five British citizens, who were in this establishment the night of the kidnapping, are suspected. Who is behind this mysterious kidnapping, and who is simply guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Response (s) after the eight one-hour episodes, the first two of which were put online this Friday on Apple TV +.
It all starts in New York in the wide hallway of a chic hotel with thick carpeting. A young man is attacked by four individuals as he tries to reach his hotel room. The individuals, who wear masks of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton, lock him in a suitcase. The kidnapping, with its grotesque accents, captured by the hotel’s surveillance cameras, is mysteriously online, and quickly becomes a meme.
Five seemingly ordinary suspects
If the Israeli False Flag had a very political starting point, namely the kidnapping by the Israelis of the Iranian Minister of Defense who was passing through Moscow. In the American version, the victim, aged 21, Leo (Gerran Howell, seen in Young Dracula) is the son of Katherine Newman (Uma Thurman), head of one of the most influential communications companies in the world and a controversial candidate. as United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
If the star of Kill Bill is at the center of the whole story, she appears little in front of the camera, especially in the first two episodes. But, his icy character sends shivers down the spine with each appearance. No doubt she’s hiding something. Moreover, the kidnappers demand that she “tell the truth” otherwise her son will be killed.
As the video of the kidnapping goes viral, the series introduces us to five seemingly unrelated characters: Tara (Elizabeth Henstridge), a professor at Oxford University who fights for custody of her daughter, Nat (Georgina Campbell , seen in black-mirror), a young woman about to get married, Aadesh (Kunal Nayyar, aka Rajesh in The Big Bang Theory), ambitious computer expert in cybersecurity, frustrated by being reduced to selling carpets in the business of his stepfather, Sean Tilson (Elyes Gabel), who has strangely mastered the art of disguise and Eddie Walker (Tom Rhys Harries, seen in White Lines), blond, classmate of Leo.
These five characters have in common to have spent a night at the hotel where the kidnapping took place, and to have returned to London after only staying in New York for a few hours. Questioned by the two agents in charge of the investigation, the British investigator of the National Crime Agency (Angel Coulby) and the American representative of the FBI (Noah Emmerich of The Americans), they all seem to have a good reason for taking this whirlwind trip across the Atlantic.
A game of cat and mouse on both sides of the Atlantic
Adapted by Rob Williams (Killing Eve) and directed by Chris Long (The Americans), Suspicion questions the omnipresence of video surveillance, social networks, disinformation, and power games. Like False Flagit intertwines individual destinies and a game of cat and mouse on an international scale, on both sides of the Atlantic at a tight pace (the plot takes place over a week), and seems to promise thrills.
It’s hard to feel empathy for Leo, even less for his mother… Despite the accumulation of secrets and other pretenses, Suspicion fails to become more than a puzzle. At best, Suspicion is a kind of somewhat average closed-door mystery, at worst, a drama that criminally undercuts one of the best actresses of her generation, Uma Thurman.