An espionage series from Amazon, “Citadel” stars Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas as spies working for a shadowy organization that is loyal to no man or nation, only to “the safety and security of all people.”
Something like “The Avengers” I guess, sans superhero costumes.
Streamers have gone full-bore on spy stories in recent months, and the quality runs the gamut. “Citadel” isn’t unwatchable, but it doesn’t make much of a case for itself, either. The show’s creator is David Weil (who also created “Hunters” for Amazon). Other key executive producers here are Anthony and Joseph Russo, aka the Russo Bros., who gave the world a couple of “Avengers” movies among their many projects, but more recently “The Gray Man” for Netflix, which Joe Russo antiseptically described as “business-focused content.”
That appears to be the philosophy for “Citadel” as well, which feels like a compilation of recycled ideas churned out by artificial intelligence.
On a train speeding through the Italian Alps, we meet the aforementioned spies, Mason and Nadia. Their target has some luggage of interest: “Our intel says he’s carrying highly enriched uranium in that case and he’s intending to sell it to any number of nefarious bidders,” says their tech ace Bernard (Stanley Tucci) via earpiece.
Tucci — the great Stanley Tucci — deserves better dialogue than this. But the opening scenes play almost as an intentional spoof of spy tropes. Almost. Nadia opens her purse to discover that Bernard has loaded it with Bondian gadgets disguised as makeup: “The compact can track a target a mile away. The perfume is a localized explosive.” What about the lipstick, she asks? “Lipstick,” he replies with a shrug. “Nothing more dangerous to a pervy old man than red lips.”
It’s a scene that’s teetering on the edge of parody, but tonally the show can’t seem to decide either way. When the operation goes wrong, a massive gunfight ensues. Then the train explodes and derails. All are presumed dead.
Mason and Nadia do survive, as it turns out. But their memories did not.
The story picks back up eight years later. The pair are Citadel’s only remaining field agents, now living banal lives. Bernard tracks them down and after something along the lines of “Surprise! You used to be a spy!,” they’re tossed back into service against an organization run by “the wealthiest families from around the world who built their own spy network to manipulate world events.” Tucci isn’t asked to do anything out of the ordinary, but he’s a lot of fun playing mirthful, self-assured characters whose sole purpose is to guide the story’s leads along the way. Lesley Manville plays a British ambassador to the U.S. who is up to no good — like, really bad stuff — and she classes up a fundamentally ridiculous role and makes a meal of it.
Amazon provided the first half of the season to critics, so I can’t say if it finds its narrative footing by the end of its six-episode run. The show’s violence is brutal, and I know for some audiences that’s a selling point (not for me). The two leads are competent enough, although Madden was doing far more interesting work in 2018’s “Bodyguard,” yet another series in which he was reluctantly tasked with a high stakes job.
“Citadel” is formulaic and busy — splashy — yet still manages to be kind of dull. Some of that is baked into the premise: “You wouldn’t know we existed, but we helped shape every major event for good in the past hundred years,” Bernard says of Citadel’s heyday. “We’re the good guys,” Mason surmises.
It’s the narrative equivalent of someone patting you on the head and saying, “We’re in charge, and if there’s any saving to be done, only we, the select, elite few, are the ones to do it.”
This is the messaging superhero stories and cop shows perpetuate to our detriment, forever asserting the myth that anyone else, particularly organized groups of regular people on the ground, are powerless — and pointless. My theory: These stories aren’t happening by accident. Why would Hollywood want to give us any bright ideas?
So instead we’re given “business-focused content.” That’s not an exciting way into a story, but a deeply cynical one.
“Citadel” — 2 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: Amazon
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic