THE RECRUIT on Netflix is a new action, thriller, crime series about the world of spies. Noah Centineo is the perfect lead. Season 1 Review >
This includes [the intense and intelligent The Following](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2071645/) which I personally enjoyed a lot! Think [Salt](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944835/)! Both the star of The Recruit, Noah Centineo, and director Doug Liman, are also among the executive producers, so they’re all in on this production. From his comedic timing to his charming (but never in an obnoxious) ways, he works unbelievably believable as the young CIA lawyer. Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. Owen Hendricks (Noah Centineo) quickly becomes entangled in the craziest situation. Smith), begins, then comes Alex Kalymnios (Quantico), followed by The letter comes from a former asset Max Meladze (Laura Haddock), who is currently in prison for murder. Especially since nobody at the CIA trusts one another, and there’s quite a brutal hazing practice. THE RECRUIT is a new Netflix series with eight episodes in its first season. Read our The Recruit Season 1 review here! He’s a lawyer.
Noah Centineo shines in The Recruit, an overly complicated spy thriller that should feel more fun.
As a spy series, executive producers Alexi Hawley (The Rookie) and Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) have made this a dense story to follow. That purity of intent gets mocked a lot by Max, and his hardened peers, so much so that it leaves you thinking often either that the CIA is kinda awful, or “Geez, give the kid a break!” Reporting the finding to Nyland gets Hendricks the assignment to follow up on the letter and the sender, which thrusts the green lawyer into the field with essentially no help, hostile people trying to hurt him at every location, and everyone being one step ahead of him. And Bruun’s Ferber is a genuine hoot as Owen’s reluctant peer/mentor who explains CIA terms, codes, and the inherent dangers of Hendricks’ actions. Dumped with the grunt work of reading through the pile of “crazies” mail that is 90% crackpot conspiracy theory missives from the public, Hendricks actually unearths one that reads like a legitimately serious letter from a female prisoner in Phoenix, Arizona. Hendricks is a fresh hire in the CIA’s General Counsel division in Langley, Virginia.
Noah Centineo stars in the new spy drama, out December 16.
It was enough to make me wish that the rest of the series’ narrative lines were cleaner and that its vision for what it could be and do were less bogged down in flaccid humor. And Owen’s relationships with his social circle — along with recriminations that his very busy schedule of espionage keeps him from being a fully involved friend — feel like a 20-years-later reboot of the least interesting parts of “Alias.” [The Recruit](https://variety.com/t/the-recruit/),” a new Netflix drama created by Alexi Hawley, thrusts Centineo’s character Owen Hendricks into the midst of international spyjinks, throughout which he runs the emotional gamut from benignly interested to mildly nervous.
Netflix's new spy-adjacent show starring Internet boyfriend Noah Centineo feels decidedly familiar.
One just wishes there was more to this spy drama than cheap thrills wrapped around a pretty boy who keeps failing upward (and into the wrong hands, over and over again). (Oh, did we forget to mention that subplot involving a torture robot?) As the season careens into a wintry high-stakes final mission for Owen and Max, the show’s spidery plot culminates in a well-worn kind of standoff where Centineo is forced to deliver lines like, “You’re a prisoner of this incessant need to survive” with a straight face. Maybe even stuff like [The Blacklist](https://www.avclub.com/tv/reviews/the-blacklist) and [Covert Affairs](https://www.avclub.com/tv/reviews/covert-affairs). All of which, of course, require him to jet set all over and continually demand he be paranoid of every new person he meets. Owen Hendricks (Centineo) is the new kid at the CIA. And the likes of [Chuck](https://www.avclub.com/tv/reviews/chuck) and Nikita. That is, until, in true spy-caper form, the plot continues to get more and more complicated, even as its set pieces and action sequences become easily spotted a mile away. Such a trope of a guy needing to bend the rules to get shit done is so overdone it’s almost laughable when presented so earnestly. The rookie, of course, dives headfirst into Max’s case. In algorithm-speak, if you enjoyed shows like those, you’re likely to find something to love about Centineo’s first stab at becoming a Gen Z action hero. You’d see [Alias](https://www.avclub.com/tv/reviews/alias) there, of course.
Colton Dunn, Laura Haddock, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Kristian Bruun and Aarti Mann also star in a series created by The Rookie showrunner Alexi Hawley.
We’re looking forward, though, to seeing more of Bruun as the extraordinarily paranoid Ferber (more on that in a second). Centineo has gotten past his YA heartthrob image from Netflix romcom films and plays Hendricks as a guy who might not always fit the mold of a tough CIA operative, but he always seems to be in the right place at the right time, even if his methods are clumsy at best and dangerous at worst. So it’s not a surprise that Alexi Hawley, who is a writer/showrunner for The Rookie and The Rookie: Feds is the creator of The Recruit. Hendricks is a lawyer, not a spy, but it seems that this series is going to be full of situations where this rookie with no experience either stumbles upon or actually digs up big and dangerous situations that he ends up insinuating himself into. All that being said, Centineo is credible as an enthusiastic rookie who seems to thrive on constantly being in over his head, and he has a good asset/foe in Haddock as Melazde. It’s not a stretch to say that the comedy-thriller vibe of The Recruit reminds us of a network series like The Rookie but with more swearing. When Hendricks decides he should go to Yemen to find Meladze’s former operative himself, the pair don’t give him any advice other than to “fly coach.” That gets him in trouble — and loses him a fingernail — when he goes unannounced to the black site where the operative is stationed, without a passport that would grant him diplomatic immunity. But the operative eventually tells him more about Melazde, and he goes to Arizona to talk to her. When he reports it to Nyland, he tells Hendricks to continue and gives Lester and Violet the crazies file back. Alexi Hawley, the showrunner of both The Rookie and [The Rookie: Feds](https://decider.com/show/the-rookie-feds/) has created a new series that centers around a new CIA lawyer who wastes no time in getting embroiled in some of the agency’s touchiest operations. But he manages to get away, and lets Melazde know that she needs him more than she’s letting on. Meanwhile, behind a truck, a guy is peeing in the snow and singing “Trouble.”
Noah Centineo pivots from high school hunk to rookie CIA lawyer in "The Recruit" -- and he's woefully miscast in this misguided, wannabe spy thriller.
There’s not a lot of coherence to why certain events are happening, with the car chases and guns seemingly added because they’re part of the spy-thriller scenario. Centineo seems eager to graduate from high school roles without first putting in the work. Still, he plays the Owen with the same Golden-Retriever energy that he used to play a high school jock. The show’s plot is essentially, “hapless new guy bumbles his way through the CIA.” It’s hard to pin down tonally, since that sounds like a slapstick comedy, and it does have humorous moments. The plot gets convoluted as Owen runs around from locations ranging from Yemen to Phoenix, but it moves at a brisk pace. It’s awkward that he hasn’t changed his style to adjust to an older character or a shift in genre.
With all respect to the actual pencil pushers and desk jockeys at Langley, I'm sure that working at the CIA isn't inherently the Jack Ryan, Jason Bourne, ...
Centineo is curiously still figuring out his groove as an actor, and this project might get him more exposure on the Netflix homepage. Centineo rides this series for how it lets Owen be quick-witted at some points and woefully naive in other places (whatever the current scene needs). But "The Recruit" is far too amused with its wordiness in sharing the stuff that happens between cubicles at Langley, and it kills what little momentum the series gathers. There are fleeting moments of mildly rendered action, accompanied by peppy music, in which his lack of physical training leads to some improvisation the script uses lazy shortcuts for (at one point, he unscrews a toilet to escape from a bathroom in the fastest way one could do that, ever). As part of his hazing, Owen is given stacks of "graymail," written letters by people who threaten to release government secrets. Of course, someone has to do the paperwork and the bureaucratic acrobatics to protect assets, vet threats, and the like.