An entertaining, gripping and credible thriller That 'The Night Agent' (limp title, by the way) was taken from a novel is apparent from the way that the story flows, in a largely time-linear fashion, with few and only brief explanatory flashbacks. Furthermore, there is a continuity to the plot, rather than an episodic tone, which too often happens in stories told in a series, with individuals appearing one week that you sense are going to make a small but telling contribution before being killed off before the credits to that portion of the story roll.
Our unlikely pair of heroes - or 'star-crossed lovers', if you care to see them in a Romeo and Juliet context - are brought together when a married couple of secret agents are accidently overheard by their niece, Rose, discussing something of significant 'national importance' before being wiped out by a pair of professional hitpersons. Before dying, they provide Rose with a secret telephone number answered by an FBI agent, Peter, located (for some unexplained reason) in a windowless office in the bowels of the White House.
As all of this takes place in the first half of Chapter One, I do not feel that it is giving too much away of the plot by explaining this unlikely connection. Suffice to say, the story evolves over ten chapters to a conclusion which may be seen as a somewhat far-fetched 'tangled web we weave', but not impossible, involving the usual motivations of a lust for power and a greed for money. Peter and Rose (maybe, with names like that, I should have likened them to a fairy tale rather than Shakespeare's lovers!) are the central characters in the story and they play their roles competently and credibly; Peter (Gabriel Basso) is somewhat wooden and one-dimensional, but that may suit the impassive nature of his character, whilst Rose starts off as the stereotypical 'helpless heroine', but eventually reveals a tough and resourceful core. There is little 'chemistry' between Peter and Rose, but there would not necessarily be any, as he was just doing his job and she was trying to cope with the sudden deaths of her aunt and uncle, the only remaining members of her family at the start of the film.
The leads are surrounded by a decent cast, including the two hitpersons, various colleagues and friends of Peter and, eventually, the most powerful person in the world, namely POTUS. One of the characters, a short and feisty female senior member of the White House staff, reminded me a great deal of the character in 'Veep' played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, in that she seemed incapable of completing a sentence with 'dropping the F-bomb' in it! Unusually, at times we see the story through the eyes of the hitpersons, who are revealed not as 'faceless goons' but as individuals simply trying to do a job - however unpleasant and illegal - and get through life.
There is the usual allocation of people hitting, and being hit by, other people, shooting at, and being shot at by, other people and car chases, but these moments are never excessive, disproportionate or irrelevant to the plot. Like peeling away the layers of an onion, the story becomes revealed in a stepwise fashion in a way that never seems illogical or ridiculous. The pacing of the development of the story is slow at times, but without ever becoming tedious.
Whilst I am sure that there are a thousand and one reasons why what takes place could never happen in reality, at no time did I feel that the actions of individuals were out of context with their roles and personalities and nothing stood out, for me, as impossible or incongruous. This was a well-made, entertaining and gripping tale which I would recommend to anyone with the interest and concentration to follow a story from a small, insignificant beginning to a powerful, albeit unlikely, climax.
8 out of 10 stars.