Agents have no nerves, because if they had any, they would be dead too. Carl Hamilton (Jakob Oftebro) is on the road for the CIA, his contact in Ramallah has not turned up, and so he joins the terrorists who may give him information about an attack in Stockholm, through alone. Though they are the kind that only let you in on your knees with a sack over your head. The head of the troop is a woman, and the Palestinians are also keeping up with the times. She is extremely sensitive to Hamilton’s questions, and suddenly there is shooting – but Hamilton hooks the hook, grabs a car and somehow gets out of there alive, all without flinching. You could have known that. Because already in the very first scene of the new ZDF series Hamilton – Undercover in Stockholm the graduates of the special training for the Navy Seals are sorted out in a swimming pool. Lots of cool guys, but one by one they get thrown at you that they failed. Only two passed – one of them is Hamilton.
The agent series is actually a Swedish-German co-production, from the genre of 24 and Homeland and American competing products by all means. The template was written by the Swedish journalist Jan Guillou, similar to the 007 creator Ian Fleming, a man of the trade, he too was involved in the secret service, and for that reason his agent Hamilton, who has already been filmed several times, is considered a kind of Nordic James Bond. However – Guillou began his series of novels in the eighties – the world was a little clearer back then. Here, Carl Hamilton basically only has to plow a single case, which extends over ten episodes.
The action scenes are right, the pace is right, as in many American series
The newly qualified special agent is the first to be sent back to Stockholm, as a viewer you are informed early on that he too does not always know what is being played – so it is no wonder that it takes a while to find your way into Hamilton’s mission. An attack is carried out while the interior minister is giving a speech on May 1st. Hamilton didn’t manage to prevent that from happening. The interior minister survives, but there are several dead – Hamilton has to clarify the background: Is there anything to do with Islamism or is it about the fact that data have become more valuable than freedom and gold combined? He then has to work with a Swedish investigator, Kristin, who initially suspects him but cannot say why.
The series docks with American cinema and serial production, with a plot that catapults the character Hamilton from the Cold War into the 21st century. The action scenes are right, the pace is right, as in many American series. Then why not right away Homeland? because Hamilton then it will soon become very, very European – ultimately it is not about the hunt for terrorists, but about balancing civil liberties, about an attack on democracy and data protection, and the latter is really not an American issue. The priorities are different, because the world is not the same everywhere.
Hamilton – Undercover in Stockholm, Wednesday, 12:45 a.m., ZDF, and in the ZDF Mediathek