Bodyguard episode 1 review: A cross between The Thick of It and a Bond movie

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Just think of every action film or television drama when the thoughts “hang on, she wouldn’t do that” or “come off it” float into your head and quickly dispel the dramatic suspense – as if a stray boom microphone had hovered into view. There’s the usual thrillery stuff you’d expect about mass murdering terrorists trying to blow up trains, but the more emotionally engaging and thrilling dynamic exists between the two principal protagonists: tough, flawed and inscrutable close personal protection officer David Budd ; and the politician he is assigned to, the icy, ambitious and sexy home secretary Julia Montague. Jed Mercurio’s excellent script can’t help but borrow from real life, and so here we have a May-esque stubborn, intelligent, slightly irritable woman tacking politically to the authoritarian right with “tough” policies and an eye to unseating her more moderate Conservative prime minister. His friend from the Helmand days is now involved in a “peace movement”, and Budd makes clear that he’d still have a family and his mate would still have a face if the likes of Montague hadn’t packed them off to fight futile wars against Saddam Hussein and Islamic State.