Prime Video’s The Assassin Isn’t Just Another Hitman Thriller

The works of the Williams Brothers — Harry and Jack — have been keeping water coolers busy for over a decade now. From The Missing to Baptiste, The Widow to Liar, and The Tourist to Boat Story, the British screenwriting siblings have demonstrated a real knack for delivering propulsive, must-see-and-talk-about thrillers. And their latest offering, six-part Prime Video series The Assassin, looks set to continue the trend in some style. Here, Keeley Hawes and Freddie Highmore star as Julie and Edward, a mother and her estranged son enjoying an uneasy reunion on a scenic Greek island. So far, so straightforward. The wrinkle, then? She’s a retired assassin, he doesn’t quite know that yet, and Julie’s past associates clearly didn’t get the memo that she’s hung up her Glock. And if that brief set-up has you intrigued, then check out our exclusive trailer for the show below;

With its exotic locales, high-octane action set pieces, and slew of cross-double-crosses, you could easily be forgiven for thinking we’re in for yet another serious hitman (or — more accurately — hitwoman) thriller here. But don’t let the wrapper fool you, friends: The Assassin, as the witty back-and-forth between Hawes and Highmore in this first trailer shows, is just as likely to kill with a barbed one-liner or inopportune moment of domestic drama as with a gun. And, as the Williams Brothers explain to Empire over Zoom, that’s very much by design.

“There are so many projects in the hitman genre, and they’ve been increasingly treated with a lot of reverence,” Jack tells Empire, citing last year’s “very serious, very sensible” Eddie Redmayne starrer The Day Of The Jackal as a standout example. “But, if anything, The Assassin is closer to something like Grosse Pointe Blank in the irreverent way it treats the job.” It’s a tonal distinction both brothers are keen to make, as Harry adds: “Rather than having something very heavy and weighty that really dissects what it means to take a life, we decided, well, ‘What if you just try and have a bit more fun with it.'”

Right at the centre of all the fun (and the drama, and the occasional scene of a staved-in head) are Julie and Freddie, whose knotty mother-son dynamic — peppered with snide remarks, fraught by a lifetime’s worth of secrets and lies, yet still somehow underscored by an abiding sense of affection — would’ve been no mean feat for any acting duo to pull off. But, as the Williams’ happily report, first-time collaborators Hawes and Highmore *ahem* killed it on The Assassin. “They both spent a lot of time working on their relationship together,” reveals Jack of the duo, whose characters find themselves on the run and fighting for survival in the series. “I think what I was most surprised by though is just how naturally funny they are together. People kept asking us if they’d worked together before — they were asking each other if they’d worked together before — because nobody could believe they hadn’t. It was amazing!”

With Grosse Pointe Blank as a reference point, Hawes and Highmore locked in and firing on all cylinders alongside a buzzy ensemble (Gina Gershon! Shalom Brune-Franklin! Richard Dormer!), and the Williams Brothers armed with more twists than a French pastry, it looks — and sounds — like The Assassin could be a real hit (sorry) when it lands on Prime Video on 25 July. Black Doves, sleep with one eye open!