In the early 1990s, a man named Robert Freegard claimed to be working for British intelligence and tried to recruit students in the north of the country to help expel members of an IRA cell called the Irish Revolutionary Army. But the reality seems to be very different, and this foreshadows disastrous consequences.

Released on July 27 on Netflix, Rogue Agent Directed by Adam Patterson and Declan Loane, the play is an adaptation of an essay describing the manhunt launched to capture the real Robert Freigard, possibly accused of fraud, kidnapping, and the hilarity of others.

Here, Freegard, who claims to be a member of MI5, the British counterintelligence, is actually a manipulator who tricks his victims into believing they are participating in a series of espionage operations that must remain secret. By the same token, these victims are either robbed or tricked into asking their parents for money, which ends up in Freeguard’s pockets.

To stop him, it takes the intervention of the lawyer Alice (Gemma Arterton), the film’s heroine who falls in love with our robber, before she realizes he’s a liar. However, Freegard will have time to escape with a nest egg of Alice’s, prompting her to redouble her efforts to get the police to intervene.

It’s on the blurring side between the elaborate lie and the real situation – the clandestine side of a spy’s life, the constant checks and dangers to be avoided at all costs – that Rogue Agent Trying to make its mark.

In this sense, James Norton, who interprets Freegard, offers a game that is quite acceptable, although not memorable.

In the same vein, if one entertains enough, listen Rogue Agent, must admit that something is missing. In fact, it feels like something is missing, something exciting beyond the idea of ​​a woman seeking revenge after being manipulated by a scumbag. Not that this basic scenario isn’t valid, but it’s offered here without any real gimmicks.

In short, Rogue Agent Even if they try to sell it to us as the equivalent of a spy story, it will not go down in history. To maintain the ambiguity of these lies about our adversary being in the intelligence service, we would have preferred something that revolved around problems with the IRA, to be precise.

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