Messiah, review: this controversial Netflix thriller is divinely underwhelming
As creator of the original American version of The Apprentice, Mark Burnett can claim some credit for the transformation of Donald Trump from loud-mouth tycoon to global politics’ answer to Simon Cowell.
So it is appropriate that his name would pop up as one of the executive producers of Messiah, Netflix’s new series about a divisive figure with a memorable hairstyle who materialises out of nowhere claiming to have the answers to the woes afflicting ordinary people only to be immediately written off by the establishment.
Messiah’s true antecedent, however, is Homeland, with a dash of Monty Python’s Life of Brian sprinkled in. But, for all the controversy it has so far whipped up – the Royal Commission of Jordan (where some of it was shot) suggesting it could be seen as “infringing on the sanctity of religion” and asking Netflix not to stream it there; a (so far) 4,000-strong petition from people fearing it will be anti-Islamic and calling for it to be banned – the 10-part drama lacks the razor-wire tension of the Claire Danes CIA caper (at least in it early incarnation as a two-hander between Danes and Damian Lewis).
It is instead a bit po-faced and plodding, its metaphysical elements sitting uneasily alongside the conventional thriller trappings. That’s despite an intense, earnest performance by Michelle Monaghan as CIA agent Eva Geller. As is mandatory for every lady spook on television, she has a problematic personal life, being recently widowed and seemingly suffering from a quietly life-threatening health condition.
All of which is immediately forgotten as she becomes obsessed with the emergence in Syria of a bearded, long-haired mystic with alarmingly Jesus-like tendencies. It isn’t just the hippy curls and the hint of a Christ-like goatee that marks Al-Masih (Mehdi Dehbi) out.
He speaks in new-age riddles – he claims to have been sent by his “father” – and has quickly and effortlessly accumulated a following of several thousand Syrian Palestinians. Soon they’re marching with him, Moses-style through the desert to the border with Israel. But when he demands food for his supporters, the Israelis instead throw him in jail.
There, he gets inside the head of his interrogator Aviram Dahan (Tomer Sisley), reminding him of a bloody deed from his past which he has buried deep down. That’s before vanishing from his cell in plain sight. It’s as if Netflix had decided to reboot the Bourne Identity with history’s most famous Nazarene standing in for Matt Damon. The unfolding excitement is observed from afar by Geller, who fears the emergence of another Bin Laden-style radical.
The problem is that Al-Masih’s Jesus qualities are communicated with such a crashing lack of subtlety that we know from the outset that she is on the wrong track. He may be delusional, but he is not terrorist on the rise. Over on social media, Arab speakers have meanwhile been pointing out that the name Al-Masih represents the mother of all spoilers regarding his ultimate character and motivation (to say more would be to ruin the ending). Scattered throughout are hints of the supernatural – how did Al-Masih read Dahan’s mind during the interrogation ? – that jar with the buttoned-down thriller tone.
Yet there is little magic in the finished product. Messiah is a New Year’s curio that doesn’t know whether it wants to be an esoteric rumination on leadership and hope or a spy romp with New Testament bells on. The “shock” conclusion is already dividing opinion online. The real twist, however, is how divinely underwhelming the whole thing is.
Messiah is streaming on Netflix now
