Robert De Niro’s first TV role is a conspiracy thriller for troubled times

ZERO DAY ★★★½

Say what you will about modern-day American politics, but it makes fertile ground for conspiracy thrillers. Toss in the rise of extremism and the growing power of the tech bros who have done so much to fuel it, and you’ve got the key ingredients for the six-episode Zero Day.

Most of the excitement around this thriller stems from the fact it marks Robert De Niro’s first TV series, after more than five decades of moviemaking. If there were any lingering doubt about where the power sits these days, this surely closes the argument. Small screen rules.

Robert De Niro as former President George Mullen.Credit: Jojo Whilden/Netflix

The dual Oscar winner plays former US president George Mullen, with the sort of efficiency of performance he’s mastered in recent years. Mullen is meant to be writing his memoir, but he’s blocked by a combination of troubling memories and failing memory. He keeps seeing things, he seems to have forgotten the old housekeeper retired five years ago, and he’s plagued by a song he keeps hearing in his head, over and over: the Sex Pistols’ Who Killed Bambi (fond as I am of the Pistols, this is not a track I’d want on high rotation either).

So when he’s drafted in by the current president (Angela Bassett) to head up an inquiry into a minute-long cyberattack on the US that causes 3400 deaths and widespread panic, it comes as both burden and relief. But with all that trippy stuff going on and his dodgy memory, is he really the right guy to head up the Zero Day Committee, with its extraordinary powers to investigate, surveil and detain?

There are plenty of good ideas kicking around in Zero Day, as you might expect of a show created by a former head of NBC News (Noah Oppenheim), a national security correspondent at the New York Times (Michael Schmidt), and veteran producer Eric Newman (Narcos, Children of Men, Griselda).

Dan Stevens as Evan Green, a populist media player who foments unrest.Credit: Netflix

Chief among them is its concern with the way chaos is provoked and discord sown deliberately by opportunists in politics, social and mainstream media, and business (especially, but not only, tech). Close behind is the notion that democracy is a fragile beast, and when confronted by such chaos many are willing to trade it away for a return to some semblance of order.

In the age of Trump and Musk, there could hardly be a more relevant subject.

But the show suffers from its insistence on even-handedness. Mullen’s political leanings are never flagged, nor those of his arch nemesis, Speaker of the House Richard Dreyer (Matthew Modine). It’s pretty obvious where they line up, but it feels like Netflix wants the cover of plausible deniability in order not to turn off half its audience.

It’s maybe a little over-plotted, too, with conspiracies within conspiracies, tragedy upon tragedy. The central premise is believable enough – a cyberattack of that scale is surely something all governments must contemplate, and prepare for – but the network of entanglements stretches credulity at times.

Still, there are some terrific moments (a riot that engulfs Mullen’s car is particularly well done). It’s not quite the great conspiracy thriller these days demand, but with a cast that includes Jesse Plemons, Joan Allen, Connie Britton and Bill Camp, it’s never less than watchable.

Zero Day streams on Netflix from February 20.

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