Reviews

When you know about the quality of the cast, the track record of the director/creator, and that the French intelligence services and former spooks contributed to the scenario, expectations run high for this series.

When you realise that it is embedded in reality and about the work of intelligence services, namely gathering and analysing information, for which the tools are brains, psychology, assets, emotions, manipulation, trading, disinformation, treachery, cyber war-fare, and other skillsets, that it's not glamorous, and that it's far less about big weapons than being able to put 2 and 2 together and making sense of constantly shifting sands and highly fluid situations, based upon which political and military decisions are made, then you know that you are onto a treat.

And, what a treat! Suspence, twists and turns, moving parts that don't always come together; all of this and plenty more are delivered, and keep you on the edge of your seat.

This is not James Bond or Jason Bourne, far from it. This is about the fastidious and ungrateful, yet highly dangerous and stressful jobs of those people evolving in the murky waters of the intelligence world. Not all saints, not all sinners, often both, and always faced with difficult decisions and their ensuing consequences, not the least guilt and sadness.

And, because intelligence officers and agents remain human after all, portraying their emotions and vulnerabilities so vividly by digging deep into their characters makes this series as real and raw as it gets.

P.S.: Watching it in its original version with subtitles in your language will take you one step closer to the action.

Good films, outside of science-fiction or fantasy themes, must rely on some logic, realism and a graspable timeline to ensure the veracity of their storylines. Well, not in this instance.

From the beginning, the timeline is all over the place, jumping from flash-backs in 1973 to the present day, all over the world. This presages a big reveal, when everything finally falls into place on a global scale, but it becomes rapidly confusing, if not messy.

And then, there are the killings. So many of them that a mass extinction is under way and one wonders if this is the only solution to solving any problem.

Finally, the small, yet recurring, illogical or unrealistic events and situations keep happening. For example, being able to survive the cold of the Arctic for hours without even a frost bite and continuing to function under water after having emptied one's lungs of air are not possible. Or, multiple loud gun shots in a grand hotel, with no police or security in sight rapidly. If some scenes are supposed to happen in Paris, why filming them in Paris and in a city that doesn't even look so blatantly like Paris?

As for suspence and twists, there are few. Everything expected happens, which implies that there are limited surprises to keep you wondering what could happen next. When "next" happens, it simply confirms your gutt-feeling of a fairly linear plot, with pre-defined and expected good guy-bad guy character assignments.

So, outside of the good fight and stunt scenes, there are too many flaws in this series, leading to it being no more than a basic bang-bang exercise of self-indulgence and poor story-telling, with a high pace that doesn't lend sufficient time to dwelve deep into the characters' minds. A roller-coaster it is, but not one that will take you to the edge of your seat.

However appealing the notion that the "American Dream" remains strong, particularly to North American audiences, "Undercover Billionaire" feels completely fabricated, unauthentic and seriously flawed on numerous occasions.

Who manages to sleep (and survive?) in a car wearing only the slimmest of winter jackets when the temperature outside is less than 30 degrees F.? Who runs a car engine for hours without running out of fuel?

Glenn rented an apartment and signed 2 leases for restaurant premises. He would have had to provide personal identification in each situation, thus disclosing his name. The same would have applied for using the small development business centre.

Glenn wouldn't have been able to buy a house and get a mortgage using a false identity, which would have been criminal. Obtaining a mortgage without disclosing one's real name is also fraudulent and any mortgage company would have required personal information disclosing who he really is and his net worth. The later would have made obtaining a mortgage very easy, but I'm very dubious about the very short amount of time it took to buy the house considering the legal and mortgage documentation required. Why didn't he carry out a survey that would have identified the mould problem is another question mark for me, especially when he states that he is an experienced property owner.

If the Underdog BBQ business was incorporated, he would have had to disclose his personal information to someone at some point in time, especially if he ended up being an officer of that company.

Glenn is seen signing cheques ... Was that with a fake signature and thus fraudulent?

And, what about the alcohol license for the restaurant. How did this happen so quickly?

One of the members of the Underdog BBQ team tells a colleague of hers that his research skills on the Internet are poor because he wasn't able to find out who Glenn was. Surprise, surprise! It took me 3 minutes to find a lot about Gleen using a few basic search words in Google and 3 different approaches (each excluding "Underdog" and "BBQ", and one excluding "TV show"). Glenn's personal website was very easy to find.

Glenn is clearly very experienced in business, articulated, structured, well-spoken, charismatic and at ease in front of the camera which, combined, are not traits of your average person.

I find it strange that some of the participants where willing to put their livelihoods and jobs on the line for Glenn, without knowing or at least hoping that there was an opportunity lurking in the background.

Finally, being followed by a camera crew and production staff usually gives a hint to people that something is not normal.

In short, despite its feel-good factor and interesting key learning points about starting and running a business, "Undercover Billionaire" feels fake, unrealistic and completely manipulated to prove a point. In that, it's more a dream than the American Dream.