‘The Recruit’ Review: Noah Centineo Finds Himself at the Wrong Place and the Wrong Time

Noah Centineo has been Netflix’s poster boy for a while. He has been the protagonist of several successful movies for the streaming platform. And he is now trying to jump onto the big screen with appearances in films like Charlie’s Angels and, most recently, in Black Adam, where he got the chance to play Atom Smasher. Now Centineo has his own Netflix series called The Recruit. It is most certain that Centineo and his team are counting on this being a success so that his career can go beyond Netflix.

The Recruit is a spy TV series developed and created by Alexi Hawley for Netflix. The series stars Noah Centineo, Laura Haddock, Aartin Mann, Kristian Bruun, Fivel Stewart, and Vondie Curtis-Hall. The series tells the story of Owen Hendricks, a young lawyer recently out of law school who has been recruited into the CIA. Unfortunately for Owen, in his first week of work, he stumbles into some truly sketchy business, which includes a foreign spy incarcerated on US soil who threats to divulge CIA secrets to the public.

For a spy show, The Recruit feels very much like a joyful show. The writing focuses very much on being fun over being serious or dramatic. There are, of course, many scenes that could be considered to be intense, but the script never goes into melodrama, and that tone is kept throughout the entire runtime of 8 episodes. Each episode runs for about an hour, but the lighthearted tone makes the entire season easy to binge-watch. Centineo comes across as a great lead; even if he doesn’t display fantastic acting skills, he has enough charisma to carry him along to the finish line.

The pacing of the show is also a great plus. The writers and the rest of the filmmaking team have made sure that there is always something happening on screen. Be it character development or something that moves the plot forward. This is a heavily-plotted show. The sequence of events and the timeline in which they happen are very important for the story to make sense. Without clarity in these aspects, the entire show would fall apart. Yes, there are many running around the bush kind of scenes, but that is basically a staple of the spy genre, so we wouldn’t be expecting anything less.

The cast is great, and everybody is doing their best work, but some actors get the short end of the stick because of the material that is being provided to them. For example, Aarti Mann and Colton Dunn are stuck playing some of the most unlikable characters of the year. They try to come off as a sort of comic relief, but in truth, they are just very unsympathetic. By the time the show tries to redeem them by the end of the season, it is already too late. Meanwhile, other actors like Byron Mann and Linus Roache come off as excellent, even when their roles are very small.

Laura Haddock also makes a great impression. The actress has been going around for a while, but it is only with this role that she finally comes to the front of a project. She plays Maxine, the second most important character of the show behind Centineo’s, and she really makes for a believable assassin gone rogue. She doesn’t only have the look, but she also has the attitude. Let’s hope that the show is successful enough that audiences and the rest of the industry have talent in the rough here.

Doug Liman directs the first couple of episodes, but for a director, with so much experience, the episodes come across as rather bland on the visual front. Sadly, the rest of the direction doesn’t really step up from Liman’s setup level. What this show needed to be on the extra level was incredible action sequences, but it fails to do that. The action might be the weakest element in the show and really stands out as a sore toe every time a new action sequence starts.

The spy genre often falls into the pitfall of being too complicated, with too many loyalties, betrayals, and factions going around with basically no care for audiences who cannot follow along. If there is something that really makes this show watchable for all kinds of audiences, it is that these aspects of the genre have been simplified in such a way that anyone can follow through. Complexity is always nice, but maybe more spy shows should take some notes from The Recruit. Accessibility is really important to take a story out of its niche place in entertainment.

In the end, The Recruit is quite a fun and entertaining show and one of the simplest but most effective spy shows of the year. The plot is always moving forward, and revelations come at a good pace. Some characters are truly dislikeable, though, and when the show forces you to spend more time with them than necessary, it becomes really annoying. However, Centeneo, and Haddock do an amazing job leading the show and making everything else worth ignoring.

SCORE: 8/10