It’s no exaggeration to say that Robert De Niro has one of the most recognizable and bluntly effective faces ever committed to the screen. His career spans decades of stone cold classics, many of which depended on him delivering yet another unforgettable performance. From “The Godfather Part II,” to his many collaborations with Martin Scorsese, and even the slapstick comedy of “Meet the Parents,” De Niro’s long embodied a deceptively tricky combination: wry, wiseguy elasticity belying a surprising warmth. He’s so good at what he does that I’d argue his work has become somewhat underrated; everyone expects De Niro to nail it, and so it becomes less remarkable when he does.
Suffice it to say: the idea of an 81 year-old De Niro starring in his first serialized TV show is a deeply compelling one. So it makes sense that “Zero Day,” a new six episode limited series premiering Thursday on Netflix, would lean into the idea of De Niro portraying a singularly charismatic man. What makes less sense, however, is just how quickly the show gets lost in its own navel-gazing plot and cardboard characters, quickly stranding its leading man in a quagmire of clichés that even he can’t sell.
De Niro plays George Mullen, a beloved former president who abruptly left politics after a single term in office. Though he’s mostly spent his retirement jogging with his golden retriever and feeling bad about the past, he’s still well-known and revered. We know this because every other scene features people lauding his ability to “consistently rally bipartisan support” with breathless awe, like he’s the last living member of an endangered species. It’s jarring to hear Mullen described so often as “nonpartisan”; he doesn’t seem to have been the country’s first president without a party. But for the purposes of where the show needs him to go next, it must insist that he’s The One True Patriot, whose reasonable words can inspire any crowd on the edge of mutiny to burst into rapturous applause.
Mullen’s retirement comes to an abrupt end on “Zero Day,” i.e. the day a devastating cyber attack shuts down the country’s electrical grid and causes widespread panic and death, thanks to the abrupt derailing of every transportation system in operation. After seeing Mullen deliver a supposedly stirring speech that calms the restless New York City masses, the president (an unforgivably underused Angela Bassett) decides to enlist his help.
She explains that the scale of “Zero Day” prompted her and the speaker of the house (Matthew Modine doing his menacing Matthew Modine thing) to fast track a commission to track down those responsible — by any means necessary. The “Zero Day Commission,” therefore, will be able to operate well outside any constitutional guard rails in its pursuit of the truth.
With this in mind, the president asks Mullen to lead the taskforce, reasoning that perhaps The Most Principled Man in the World will be able to resist allowing its absolute power to corrupt him absolutely. His wife Sheila, an aspiring federal judge played with typical steel by Joan Allen, agrees. “This commission is the single greatest affront to civil liberties anyone has ever attempted,” she somberly tells him in the pilot episode. “That’s why you have to do it.” (No spoilers, but this is indeed what we in the biz call “foreshadowing.”)
There’s little about the political crises currently enveloping our country that “Zero Day” doesn’t try to incorporate. Over six episodes, the series stuffs as many buzzwords into a blender as it can, from the mission creep of fascism to the amorphous specter of “radical leftists” lurking off the radar. Mullen spends several episodes obsessed with Evan Green, an incendiary Newsmax-esque pundit (a very game Dan Stevens) who streams hot takes out of his luxurious basement to a public that’s all too willing to buy his bleak vision of the American government.
At its most interesting, the series lets Mullen stray outside his strict moral center and into the muck. When he allows himself to feel the full force of his own confused fury, whether at vague “enemies” of the state or endless partisan bickering, De Niro gets more to work with, too. Otherwise, Mullen’s a cipher who greets even the biggest of bombshells with unblinking acceptance. For all the actor’s traditionally fiery political opinions and outspoken desire for a return to civility in government, it nonetheless proves a weird choice to cast him in a role that essentially sands off all his edges.
As directed by Lesli Linka Glatter (“Homeland”), that strange sense of remove permeates throughout “Zero Day.” It doesn’t help that De Niro’s central performance feels like it’s stuck in first gear, especially in contrast to actors like Stevens, Jesse Plemons (as a sketchy advisor), and Lizzy Caplan (as Mullen’s jaded daughter) who do their damnedest to squeeze nuance out of their scripts. Attempts to inject scenes with some urgency only highlight the clichés at work, and in the rush to cram in so many twists, the show loses the nuance its subject matter so badly needs. Even when the storytelling is efficient, it’s just not particularly affecting.
I was about halfway through the series before I realized why.
While Mullen’s obsession with Evan Green leads him down a rabbit hole, he’s far from the only one on this show who’s obsessed with cable news. In fact, I’d estimate that a solid third of “Zero Day” is devoted to the incredibly static sight of people either watching the news or delivering statements to a gaggle of cameras. While the cast is undeniably stacked with acting talent, there’s also a strong case to be made for all the CNN and MSNBC pundits playing themselves throughout to get recurring credits for how much they appear.
In these moments — of which there are truly so, so many — it’s useful to know that the show’s co-creators include not just “Narcos” showrunner Eric Newman, but former NBC News head Noah Oppenheim and New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt (who’s also married to MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, a frequent “Zero Day” guest star). No wonder this show invests so much stock in the power of a stirring speech, preferably one delivered to the public through the overstimulating 24/7 carousel that is cable news.
It’s like “Zero Day” is trying to be Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” if it took place within the “24” universe, but no one with the power to actually do anything can tear themselves away from their televisions long enough to use it. When they finally do manage to make a decision, solving the problem often comes second to mitigating bad press. For as many worst case scenarios as “Zero Day” throws at us, its depiction of cable news addiction — and legislative decisions based more on ratings than reason — might be its truest and most terrifying insight of all.
ZERO DAY
Starring: Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, Joan Allen, Matthew Modine, Lizzy Caplan, Angela Bassett, Connie Britton. On Netflix