The Agency review: American remake of French spy thriller Le Bureau ramps up the dramatics

Whenever the Americans remake a beloved project from another country, there is a high level of scepticism, and even some hostility.

So, if you’re going to do your own spin on the extremely well-regarded French espionage drama series Le Bureau des Legendes, you better bring it.

To that end, the Yanks did. This is super-powered series with an impressive ensemble in front and behind the camera. To start, George Clooney and Grant Heslov are the producers while English filmmaker Joe Wright (Atonement, The Darkest Hour) directed the initial episodes, setting the tone and visual style.

It was created by Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth, award-winning brothers who have written the screenplays for the likes of Ford v Ferrari and Edge of Tomorrow, and the series features Michael Fassbender, Jodie Turner-Smith, Jeffrey Wright, Richard Gere, Katherine Waterston, John Magaro and Harriet Sansom Harris.

Packed with talent, The Agency is, in the first two episodes made available for review, a promising start. It’s a slick and disciplined spy thriller with high-end production values and, so far, a worthy follow to Eric Rochant’s French series.

If you’ve never seen Le Bureau before, The Agency is centred on a CIA field agent, codename Martian (Fassbender) who returns to London after six years undercover in Ethiopia where he had been developing relationships for intelligence gathering.

While there, he started something with Sami Zahir (Turner-Smith), an academic who was neither an asset nor a source. When he is given 48 hours to extricate himself from his assignment, he breaks it off with Sami.

His entry back into the “real” world comes with teething pains. An agency psychologist, Dr. Blake (Harriet Sansom Harris), notes that he checks his rearview mirrors every five seconds and clocks the model, licence plate and passengers of each passing car. Martian can’t quit the undercover mentality.

Sami also turns up in London, ostensibly for a UNESCO workship, and the two start up their affair, which puts them both at great risk.

At the same time, a CIA operative in the Ukraine has been arrested but it’s not clear if his cover is blown, or whether he was a double agent all along. Has the agency’s missions in the region been compromised?

The third story strand is a newbie operative who begins a long-term mission to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear facilities which involves, first, securing a job at a scientific institute in London.

That subplot has its own narrative purpose but it also sets up the contrast between a new person being briefed on how lonely and sacrificial the job is, and old-hand Martian, the product of that isolated life.

The Agency appears to be a pretty faithful remake of the French version with some scenes almost beat-for-beat with the French original. There are some changes – Algeria is swapped out for Ukraine to reflect geopolitics in 2024, and Syria for Ethiopia.

The main departure so far is there is a scenario where in the French version involves a car being intercepted and turning back with no incident but in The Agency leads to a full-on firefight with machine guns and 40 armed soldiers.

That American flair for the dramatics is alive and well. It will be interesting to see if it leans into it more, dialling up the spectacle, as the season progresses.

Le Bureau was lauded for many things but one of its key strengths was that it kept the thrills grounded. When you don’t have as much money as an American production to stage action set-pieces, you care a lot more about every office-bound, interior scene where it’s just people talking.

Let’s hope The Agency doesn’t push that aside.

The Agency is streaming on Paramount+