The Recruit (2022) Review: Noah Centineo’s Spy Thriller is Familiar and Underwhelming

On CIA lawyer Owen Hendricks’s first week, he finds himself entangled in a dangerous and absurd game of politics and power when former asset Max Meladze threatens to expose the agency if she is not exonerated of some serious crimes. On top of that, he must finish a few assignments and make a mark in the CIA, which comes with its own set of challenges!

The series has 8 episodes, each with a runtime of around an hour.

-No Spoilers-

The Recruit Review

In Netflix series The Recruit, it is Owen Hendricks’ first day at the CIA as a lawyer. As a new joiner, he’s given the burdensome task of going through the letters the agency received from people. He is supposed to find anything that will threaten the CIA. Owen comes across a letter from former Russian asset Max Meladze. In the letter, Max blackmails them, saying that she will leak out their secrets if they don’t help her pardon from the USA.

Owen, who is young and would go to any extent to prove his potential takes up the task of handling Max Meladze and finding out what she knows about the CIA. Throughout the series, we see him facing obstacles in his mission to seek answers. Will Owen accomplish his first big task? We find out in the end.

After making us fall in love with his charm in rom-coms, Noah Centineo decided to floor us with a spy thriller. However, is The Recruit good enough to watch till the end? Sadly no. The Netflix series follows the standard portrayal of spy and lawyer crime series and movies we have seen in the past.

The mission to find out what Max Meladze intends to do and how to tackle it is the driving force of Noah’s series. However, the hurdles Owen faces while carrying out his job appear weak. He travels from one place to another like it is no big deal. He gets chased, beaten up or even kidnapped. But at the end of almost every episode, Owen manages to escape and return home.

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Talking about home, the series also focuses on Owen’s personal life, which doesn’t do much for the story. One of his roommates is his ex-girlfriend Hannah. It’s not a romantic series, but Noah has ladies all over him. It just doesn’t fit well with the show’s tonality. There’s so much conversation with little action in Owen’s assignment that one loses interest in even continuing after the 4th episode.

We have seen the good and the bad use each other for their selfish motives. Even if the makers decided to follow the tried and tested formula to tell their story, their execution was dull. The suspense series had hardly any jaw-dropping moments.

Coming to performances, Noah Centineo has done a good job as Owen Hendricks. It is good to see him experiment with genres and show that he is more than just a rom-com guy. However, a talent like him deserves a compelling series to help him shine better. Laura Haddock impresses you as Max, a wicked character who leaves us guessing what she plans to do. The rest of the cast does their job well.

Final Thoughts

Overall, The Recruit on Netflix is quite long and has little substance to offer. It’s an 8-hour-long series that have familiar narratives and underwhelming moments. Noah did his best, but the series misses the ‘extra’ from the ‘ordinary’. It ends on a cliffhanger. Every time a show ends on cliffhangers without giving us the answers to major queries, it leaves me anxious. What if it gets cancelled?

The show is now streaming on Netflix.

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