The 1993 novel by John le Carré has been updated to capture the present-day turmoil in the Middle East, and The Night Manager commences with the absurd image of Jonathan Pine, in a slightly rumpled blue dress shirt and white pants, striding through the chaos of Cairo's Tahrir Square in 2011. The sequence echoes Robert Duvall's confident stride in Apocalypse Now, navigating bullets and bombs with a keen eye for finding a good spot to surf. While Pine may not "love the smell of napalm in the morning" – and will, in fact, take great risks to keep it from falling into the wrong hands – it's crucial to him that he remains grounded and a man of the people. Though he may not consider himself invincible like Duvall's Lt. Col. Kilgore, he's willing to walk through fire to stay tethered to reality.
As portrayed by Tom Hiddleston, who exudes a figure of elegance and strength that surpasses any James Bond since Sean Connery, Pine makes a living servicing those who are cordoned off from reality. With protests against Hosni Mubarak peaking just outside his five-star Hotel Nefertiti, Pine cheerfully accommodates the panicked guests who want to escape in the next taxi, giving no indication that he resents their privilege. He gently suggests a woman take shelter in the bar, where "cocktails are complimentary." As the Egyptian government collapses, he's apologetic for any inconvenience it may cause. Circumstances will transform him into an active seeker of justice, but let it never be questioned that Pine is dedicated to his job.
The casting of Hiddleston in the title role encapsulates the specific – and thus far enormous – appeal of The Night Manager, which aims to position itself as both a sobering treatment of the black-market weapons trade and a spy thriller indulging in romantic adventure. Series director Susanne Bier, who emerged from the Dogme 95 movement with 2002's Open Hearts but has since moved on to slicker fare like the Oscar-winning In a Better World and the English-language duds Things We Lost in the Fire and Serena, emphasizes Hiddleston's piercing eyes and lean physique, as well as the assurance with which Pine carries himself. That composure will surely be shaken as he delves deeper into the fray, but his heroic gait is undeniably alluring, an early indicator that entertainment is as big a priority as politics.
And entertain the first episode does, efficiently setting the stage for a cat-and-mouse game between Pine and Richard Onslow Roper, the nefarious arms dealer played by Hugh Laurie. For most of its first hour, The Night Manager treats Roper like the shark in Jaws, tucking him away in murky waters while Pine makes his first move toward bringing him down. Even when Roper isn't physically present, his sphere of influence is chilling; he's powerful enough to freak out Freddie Hamid (David Avery), the billionaire playboy who wants to buy his weapons, and pollute the pipeline leading from Pine to British intelligence. Were Pine not uniquely stationed at a hotel that discreetly accommodates the rich and venal, Roper would remain a specter.
Pine's desire to stay detached from his clients' business is trumped by a tug at his conscience. Hamid's beautiful mistress, Sophie Alekan (Aure Atika), seems to recognize that inner conflict from the start, which explains why she risks handing him documents that itemize the weapons Roper intends to sell to Hamid – presumably for post-revolution oppression. Hamid's family has likely benefited from Mubarak's authoritarian rule, and the chaos of a new, potentially unfavorable government is a threat to their fortune. Alekan wants Pine to keep a copy of the incriminating documents in the hotel safe, to be released if anything happens to her, but there's a tacit understanding that he'll act on the information himself. Because that's the type of person he is.
As news of the documents reached Hamid and Roper, Alekan's bravery proved to be her undoing, leading to her inevitable demise. It also put a stop to the arms deal, halting the pursuit of justice in its tracks. Yet, memories of Alekan still haunt Pine four years later, when he had moved on to managing the Meisters Hotel in the picturesque mountains of Zermatt, Switzerland, and suddenly found himself facing Roper once again. In this regard, the story mirrors le Carré's The Constant Gardener, featuring a hero driven by the death of a woman close to him. (Although Bier's tacky images of Alekan in Pine's dreams, a ghostly figure clad in billowy gowns, are an unnecessary flourish.) Without her, it is possible that Pine would have looked the other way out of an instinct for self-preservation. He now understands that capturing "the worst person in the world" won't be as simple as passing on the right information to the right people.
Which brings us to Angela Burr (Olivia Colman), the only British intelligence operative he can trust. "Do whatever you want with those," Pine tells her, passing her an envelope full of discarded cell phone chips. "I don't want to be involved." But Burr, like Alekan, correctly reads Pine as a man who cannot suppress his basic sense of decency and civic duty. Having served two tours in Iraq for the British army, he knows, in Burr's words, "what those weapons can do to a body." Our reluctant hero is ready to join the fight.
