‘Zero Day’: Robert De Niro Achieves TDS Catharsis

Robert De Niro’s iconic presence informs the new Netflix series Zero Day, in which De Niro plays a disgraced former U.S. President whose cardinal political sin is an abundance of scruples. The government calls him out of retirement to head an inquest into the source of a 9/11-style cyber attack that killed 4,000 Americans. Zero Day weaves today’s headline-grabbing events into a surreal psychological tapestry of secrecy and betrayal–a political drama that ideally suits De Niro in more ways than one.

President Mullins, as it happens, is something of a mental wunderkind – an Oval Officer Sherlock Holmes who began living a documented life years before social media. His principal legacy consists of hundreds of hardback composition notebooks in which he has jotted down decades of reminders, theories and records of events. The sheer volume of material boggles Mullins as he attempts to write his memoirs. But former President or not, he’s already got his advance, and thus far has produced nothing. His publisher is growing impatient.

It is at this point that the titular “zero day” occurs. The term, the show tells us, is a post-catastrophe codeword for a massive cyberattack that compromises national security. During this zero day, power grids fail, trains derail, planes tumble from the sky and a single ominous message appears on every cell phone in the country, promising a repeat performance.

Mullins, despite his writer’s block and fabulous scruples, is treated as a relic of the past–a dinosaur in an era where ‘His Kind’ has been replaced by an enlightened black lady president. She’s large and in charge but needs an iconic face to head the inquest into zero day (not to mention political distance from any possible fallout). Will Mullins play ball? Boy Scout that he is, he most certainly does. And so, part Jimmy Carter, part Mike Hammer, he gets to work chasing down the enemies of America.

Mullins spends a good chunk of time visiting zero day disaster areas, marching around devastated city streets in a windbreaker with a retinue of bodyguards while interacting with the locals. De Niro himself pulled a similar stunt eight months ago when he held an outdoor press conference in New York denouncing Donald Trump. During an altercation with a bystander, De Niro waxed psychotic, bellowing insults at the passing heckler. Like Mullins, De Niro believes he is chasing down the enemies of America. But this is where art and life take both take an off-ramp into the Twilight Zone.

Early on in the series, there is some question as to President Mullins’ mental competence. One could very well ask the same of Robert De Niro himself. It is customary for police to visit those who utter public threats, if for no reason other than to verify they are compos mentis. While this writer applauds the freedom of actors or artists of any stripe (excluding mimes) to speak their minds, one would hope for more elevated rhetoric from our public figures. Yet we live in the age of social media outrage. When political discourse degenerates to the level of WWE trash talk, we’ve achieved full Idiocracy. De Niro, I suspect, recognizes this, as do the writers of Zero Day.

The plot of Zero Day itself features a variety of contemporary ‘types’ that lend the series a sense of relevant immediacy. The presidential aide in NA, the tough lady chief-of-staff, the hacker collective and the omnipresence of social media vultures all play their part in what becomes a compelling psychological drama. And yet one cannot escape a weird sense of Deja-vu.

De Niro’s continual media presence as a nemesis to Donald Trump and his Mullins-esque venturing onto the street in a political stunt bathes Zero Day in a surreal aura of art imitating life imitating art imitating life –the crazed actor hectoring the crazed President and achieving catharsis by portraying a President on TV. President Mullins is a sort of anti-Trump, full of decency, courage and a commitment to public service. Part espionage thriller, part wish fulfillment, part TDS catharsis, Zero Day is a compelling series so long as one manages to watch it without reflecting on De Niro’s increasingly intrusive public political commentary. I found this nearly impossible.