Catherine Zeta-Jones Can't Save AMC+'s Sluggish Thriller 'Kill Jackie'

AMC+'s new limited series Kill Jackie arrives carrying the DNA of a classic European thriller — a glamorous antiheroine, sun-drenched Spanish landscapes, a murderous ensemble of assassins with outlandish monikers. Unfortunately, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the execution lands somewhere considerably less exciting than the premise promises.

A Premise With Genuine Potential

Adapted from Nick Harkaway's novel The Price You Pay by creators Tom Butterworth and Conor Keane, Kill Jackie centers on Jackie, a high-end European art dealer whose ultra-privileged world — private jets, eight-figure sales, billionaire clients — has grown as dull and hollow as a forgery. The series wastes little time establishing that Jackie's restlessness is rooted in something deeper: she once ran a cocaine empire at the very top of the trade, and nothing in her respectable present life has come close to replicating that particular voltage. Before she can meaningfully reckon with her ennui, an anonymous client contracts the Seven Demons — a boutique collective of elite killers — to end her life. Jackie's response is to go on offense, hunting them across the rugged terrain of northern Spain before they can close in on her.

On its surface, it's the kind of setup that powered some of the best action-thrillers of the 1990s. The bones are sound. The problem is everything built on top of them.

Where the Series Goes Wrong

The eight hourlong episodes trace Jackie's journey from the coastal blues of Bilbao to the towering Pyrenees, pitting her against a roster of assassins who arrive looking promisingly eccentric — a snakeskin-booted gunman called The Cuban, a parkour-obsessed hipster — but who quickly reveal themselves to be little more than vivid costuming draped over narrative placeholders. The action sequences that should provide kinetic release are, by most accounts, uninspired and perfunctory. The series gestures toward transgressive excess — death by vegetable peeler, threats of cannibalism, liquid nitrogen — but stops frustratingly short of committing to the lurid energy those details imply. The result is a show that repeatedly teases a wilder, more dangerous version of itself without ever fully materializing.

The visual presentation compounds the problem. Despite a backdrop that should look ravishing on screen, the cinematography falls into the flat, overlit aesthetic that has become the unfortunate signature of too many mid-tier streaming productions. For a series leaning heavily on the allure of its locations and its protagonist's supposed glamour, looking this unremarkable is close to a fatal flaw.

Zeta-Jones in a Difficult Spot

Catherine Zeta-Jones, stepping into her natural Welsh accent for what feels like a genuine rarity in her career, is working with material that doesn't give her much room to operate. Her take on Jackie's unruffled cool tips too far into detachment, landing the character in a register closer to blankness than composure. The performance rarely escapes a narrow band of mild reactions — some surprise, some disappointment, the occasional flicker of amusement — and the script's dialogue does her few favors. It's worth noting that finding the right vehicle for a performer of her caliber is no small thing, and one wonders whether a stronger creative framework might have unlocked something more compelling. Audiences who've been following Sandra Bullock's return in Practical Magic 2 or tracking Priyanka Chopra's recent streaming success will recognize how dramatically the right project can elevate a star's presence.

The Ensemble's Bright Spots

Not everyone in the cast is hamstrung to the same degree. Óscar Jaenada lends genuine weight to Zigor, a former Demon with his own score to settle. Christine Adams manages to suggest a real interior life beneath The Doc's elaborately severe wardrobe. And Daniel Ings, cast as Sam — a bewildered tax attorney who finds himself inexplicably caught in the chaos — proves to be the series' most reliable source of energy, leaning into the character's escalating panic with a committed physicality that makes him the closest thing the show has to a genuinely watchable presence.

Final Verdict

For fans curious about what compelling streaming action looks like right now, the contrast with recent successes — Hugh Jackman's The Sheep Detectives finding a strong audience on Prime Video or Gal Gadot's In the Hand of Dante landing on Netflix — makes Kill Jackie's misfires all the more apparent. A stronger script and more committed direction might have turned these elements into something genuinely exhilarating. As it stands, the series' greatest irony is that it shares its protagonist's most defining trait: a pervasive, contagious boredom.