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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

thedullwoodexperiment

Tag Archives: Spies

Bridge of Spies (2015)

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

America, Amy Ryan, Cold War, Drama, East Germany, Espionage, Exchange, Francis Gary Powers, Glienicke Bridge, Historical drama, James B. Donovan, Mark Rylance, Review, Rudolf Abel, Russia, Scott Shepherd, Spies, Steven Spielberg, Thriller, Tom Hanks, U2 spy plane

Bridge of Spies

D: Steven Spielberg / 141m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Scott Shepherd, Amy Ryan, Austin Stowell, Sebastian Koch, Alan Alda, Jesse Plemons, Will Rogers, Michael Gaston, Dakin Matthews, Billy Magnussen, Peter McRobbie, Mikhail Gorevoy, Burghart Klaußner, Max Mauff

In 1957, Rudolf Abel (Rylance) was arrested by FBI agents and charged with three counts of conspiracy as a Soviet spy. He was defended by an insurance attorney called James B. Donovan (Hanks), but despite Donovan’s best efforts (and to no one’s surprise) Abel was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to a total of forty-five years in prison (which was a surprise). An appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected and Abel remained in jail.

In 1960, US pilot Francis Gary Powers (Stowell) was shot down while on a spy plane mission over Soviet territory. He was charged with espionage against the Soviet Union and sentenced to ten years in prison. In 1961, American economics student Frederic Pryor (Rogers) found himself arrested and held without charge by the East German police. In 1962, Donovan, at the request of CIA chief Allen Dulles (McRobbie), travelled to Berlin to negotiate the exchange of Abel for Powers; when he learned of Pryor’s incarceration he made the young student’s release a part of the deal as well. On 10 February 1962, Pryor was released at Checkpoint Charlie, and Abel and Powers’ exchange took place at the Glienicke Bridge.

Bridge of Spies - scene3

These are the basic facts that Bridge of Spies elects to tell, and while it makes it clear from the beginning that the movie is “inspired” by real events, writers Matt Charman and Joel and Ethan Coen have expanded on those facts in order to fill in the gaps and make the movie more audience friendly. They’ve done a terrific job, with the politics of the time, both American and Soviet, explored and explained with a conciseness and brevity that allows the story to breathe and not be bogged down by endless exposition (there’s even room for a brief exposé of East German politics as well). What this means is that Bridge of Spies becomes a movie where all the twists and turns don’t leave the viewer baffled as to what’s going on, and they have a firm grounding as to why it’s all happening.

With the political and espionage themes so effectively set up and presented, Spielberg is left to get on with doing what he does best: telling a complex, complicated story easily and with surprising verve. The director seems at home when making historical dramas, and he has an enviable track record in the genre, from Empire of the Sun (1987) to Schindler’s List (1993) to Munich (2005) to Lincoln (2012). Spielberg is rightly regarded as a populist movie maker, but it’s his forays into history that often prove more satisfying, and Bridge of Spies is no different. Most of the “action” takes place behind closed doors, and consists generally of conversations between Donovan and one or two others. But it’s during these scenes that Spielberg teases out the subtleties and unspoken nuances of the various negotiations and political manoeuvrings, and makes them resonate in a way that few other directors are able to.

Bridge of Spies - scene2

As Donovan juggles the demands of his own government with the needs of the Soviet Union, and the aims of the newly created East German authorities, Spielberg shows how close everyone is in terms of not wanting to be seen to be directly involved in any of the negotiations – Donovan himself is officially a private citizen representing his client, Abel – and how appearances are more important than the truth. Donovan is seen as an honorable man doing the best he can, and as he sees fit, in difficult circumstances, and his early brushes with his own legal system (which seems happy to ignore due process and the Fourth Amendment when it comes to prosecuting Soviet spies) show just how determined and independent-minded he is; or, as Abel puts it, a “standing man”. Donovan provides the moral compass to help audiences steer their way through the various schemes and ruses that each side comes up with.

In the more than capable hands of Hanks, Donovan is an ordinary man thrust into the extraordinary world of legal and political expediency and asked to put aside his personal and moral beliefs. That he doesn’t, and that he doesn’t in such a way that he also doesn’t appear to be pedantic or judgmental (at least not publicly) is a measure of Hanks’ controlled portrayal and what’s needed to make Donovan both sympathetic and credible. Hanks is matched by an equally impressive performance from Rylance, his stoic features and polite bearing providing a neat counterpoint to the American public’s view of him as reprehensible and an enemy of the American way of life. At different points in the movie, Donovan asks Abel the same question but in different ways: “Aren’t you worried by what might happen to you?” And always he answers: “Would it help?” Rylance plays Abel quietly and with dignity, his awareness of his situation and the political games going on around him expressed with a resigned authority.

Spielberg recreates the period with his trademark exactitude, and aided by longtime collaborator Janusz Kaminski highlights the differences between US and East German life by emphasising Powers’ homeland via warm tones and an ingrained sense of comfort, while recreating Berlin’s post-War identity as the still-blasted, partially rebuilt city it was. The contrast is illuminating, adding to Donovan’s initial feelings of unease as he navigates the treacherous waters of international diplomacy.

Bridge of Spies - scene1

It’s here though that the movie loses some of the traction it’s built up along the way. Abel’s arrest and subsequent trial, along with Donovan’s hampered attempts to defend him properly, are expertly handled by Spielberg, and if the movie had only been concerned with Abel’s case then it would be an unqualified success. But once Donovan arrives in Berlin, and despite the various obstacles that threaten to derail his negotiations with the Soviets and the East Germans, there’s no tension in these scenes. Donovan overcomes each obstacle by either refusing to accept the problem is worth worrying about, or by making demands in the hope that the other side will blink first. By making this stretch of the movie so “easy” for Donovan, by the time we get to the exchange at the Glienicke Bridge, there’s so little reason or chance for things to go wrong at the last minute that any apprehension on the audience’s part has evaporated long before.

It’s a shame as the scenes in Berlin should have provided most if not all of the movie’s dramatic highlights, but alas it’s not to be. There is humour however, with Donovan’s fish-out-of-water situation used to good effect, and it’s drily executed by Hanks and perfectly in keeping with Donovan’s increasingly weary view of the world (at one point he remarks that the full names of the Soviet Union and East Germany are just too long). Away from Donovan’s efforts to negotiate the exchange and Pryor’s release, there’s a powerful sequence that shows Powers’ U2 plane being shot down and just how lucky he was to survive (though the movie makes it clear he shouldn’t have), and we see the initial creation of the Berlin Wall, a sight that remains unnerving even now that it’s gone.

Rating: 8/10 – measured, patient and deceptively simple in its approach, Bridge of Spies lacks resonance in terms of what’s happening in the world today, but as an examination of a particular event in recent world history it’s still fascinating and informative; capped by another of Hanks’ effortless performances, and Spielberg’s mastery of the medium, it’s a movie that holds the attention throughout even if it isn’t particularly thrilling.

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Mini-Review: The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Alicia Vikander, Armie Hammer, Atom bomb, CIA, Cold War, Drama, Elizabeth Debicki, Guy Ritchie, Henry Cavill, Hugh Grant, Ilya Kuryakin, KGB, Napoleon Solo, Review, Spies, The Sixties, Thriller, U.N.C.L.E.

Man from U.N.C.L.E., The

D: Guy Ritchie / 116m

Cast: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Luca Calvani, Sylvester Groth, Hugh Grant, Jared Harris, Christian Berkel, Misha Kuznetsov

Following his rescue of a scientist’s daughter, Gaby Teller (Vikander) from East Berlin, CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Cavill) is told by his boss (Harris) that he has a new partner: the KGB agent who tried to stop him, Ilya Kuryakin (Hammer). Gaby’s father, Udo (Berkel), is building an atom bomb that’s intended for a hidden Nazi group. Her Uncle Rudi (Groth) is suspected of knowing where he is. Solo and Kuryakin must take Gaby to Rome where evidence points to the involvement of the Alexanders (Calvani, Debicki). While Solo poses as an antiquities dealer, Kuryakin poses as Gaby’s fiancé. Solo and Kuryakin attend a party given by Victoria Alexander where they discover evidence that the atom bomb (and Udo) must be nearby. That night they both break in to the Alexanders’ factory where they find further evidence of Udo’s work.

Solo meets with Victoria but she drugs his drink. When he wakes he finds himself strapped to a chair and about to be tortured by Uncle Rudi who turns out to be an evil Nazi scientist. With Kuryakin’s aid he escapes, while Gaby is taken to an island where her father is putting the finishing touches to the bomb. It’s at this point that Solo and Kuryakin are introduced to Commander Waverly (Grant), a member of British intelligence. He fills them in on some information that’s been held back from them, and reveals a plan to infiltrate the island, seize the atom bomb, and rescue Gaby and her father. But the Alexanders have an ace up their sleeve…

Man from U.N.C.L.E., The - scene

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (on the big screen at least) has been a long time coming. But up until the recent involvement of Ritchie and his producing partner Lionel Wigram, every attempt to make a movie version of the classic 60’s TV show has stalled, often before it’s even cleared the gate. Coming off two very successful Sherlock Holmes movies, Ritchie has clearly been given as much leeway as he needs in order to bring this movie to audiences, and while he uses many of the stylistic shooting techniques he used on the Holmes movies, what he’s failed to do is come up with a story that is either exciting or engrossing. It’s a shame as the potential is there for another successful franchise, but aside from a splendidly retro feel for the era, the movie lacks the kind of impact that would lift it out of the bin marked “ordinary”.

Things aren’t helped by the casting of Cavill and Hammer, two averagely effective actors who lack the subtlety required to make Solo and Kuryakin anything more than grudging partners. Sure it’s an origin story so the animosity is understandable, but they’re also highly skilled professionals, the best at what they do; so why make Solo a preening plank, or Kuryakin a headstrong liability? It’s a curious decision, to make your two leading men so unrelatable, but Ritchie’s gone with it completely, and the movie suffers appropriately. Thankfully, the same can’t be said of Vikander and Debicki, who save the movie from being too much of a debacle, and the involvement of Grant, who seems to be having the most fun he’s had in years. If there is to be a sequel – and at the moment the movie’s performance at the box office seems to indicate there won’t be – then a serious rethink is in order.

Rating: 5/10 – not as bad as it could have been, but also not as good as it should have been, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. lacks energy and limps uneasily from scene to scene in search of a consistently entertaining tone that it doesn’t find; a pleasant enough diversion if you’re in the mood, but definitely not a movie to expect too much from.

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Spy (2015)

02 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Action, Budapest, CIA, Comedy, Drama, Jason Statham, Jude Law, Melissa McCarthy, Miranda Hart, Nuclear weapon, Paris, Paul Feig, Review, Rome, Rose Byrne, Spies, Thriller, Undercover

Spy

D: Paul Feig / 120m

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart, Allison Janney, Bobby Cannavale, Peter Serafinowicz, Morena Baccarin, Richard Brake, Nargis Fakhri, 50 Cent, Jude Law

CIA operatives Bradley Fine (Law) and Susan Cooper (McCarthy) are the best team in the organisation: Fine out in the field, Susan back at HQ guiding and protecting him on his missions. After Fine misses out on the chance to find the whereabouts of a nuclear weapon that’s up for sale – by accidentally shooting the seller – the CIA soon learns that the seller’s daughter, Rayna Boyanov (Byrne), has taken over the sale and through corrupt businessman Sergio De Luca (Cannavale) is offering it to terrorist Solsa Dudaev (Brake).

Fine infiltrates Rayna’s home but discovers it’s a trap; Susan has to watch as Rayna kills him. When it becomes clear that Rayna knows the identities of all of the CIA’s top agents, including gung-ho hothead Rick Ford (Statham), Susan volunteers to travel to Paris where De Luca has an office, and to report back any activity. Followed there by Ford, who thinks she’ll compromise the mission, Susan discovers that De Luca is now in Rome. Once there, she switches her dowdy undercover identity for a more upmarket one, and trails De Luca to a casino. She witnesses a man spike a drink at the bar; when the drink is delivered to none other than Rayna, Susan sees her chance to get close to Fine’s killer and find out the location of the nuclear weapon.

Gaining Rayna’s confidence, the pair fly to Budapest. During the flight one of the pilot tries to kill Rayna but Susan overpowers him and lands the plane instead. In the process she reveals her skills as an agent, and Rayna becomes convinced she works for the CIA. Susan manages to convince her that her father employed Susan to look after her. Rayna believes her story, but when they arrive in Budapest, matters are complicated by the arrival of Susan’s best friend and co-worker, Nancy (Hart) who has been sent to check on her. Pretending Nancy works for her, Susan foils another bid to kill Rayna, but in doing so finds herself at Rayna’s mercy, and with the sale of the nuclear weapon a matter of hours away.

Spy - scene

It’s been four short years since Melissa McCarthy shot to fame by defecating into a sink in the movie Bridesmaids (2011). In that time she’s continued with her role in the TV show Mike & Molly, had a minor role in This Is 40 (2012), given supporting turns in The Hangover Part III (2013) and St. Vincent (2014), co-starred with Sandra Bullock in The Heat (2013), and headlined two movies of her own, Identity Thief (2013) and Tammy (2014). If the last two movies didn’t exactly set critical pulses racing, both took over $100,000,000 worldwide, proving that audiences enjoyed watching slight variations on the character she first played in director Paul Feig’s earlier movie.

But it was a character that had a limited shelf life, and with Spy, McCarthy and Feig have wisely broadened their horizons, and in so doing, have given the actress her best role yet. As the ten years desk bound CIA agent who dreams of some excitement in her life, McCarthy delivers a performance that is at once more controlled and less wayward. In creating Susan Cooper, McCarthy shows that she has much more to offer than pratfalls and foul-mouthed schtick (even though there’s room for both here, just not as much as usual), and is more than capable of playing a fully rounded character. It’s good to see her owning the material as well and riffing on it to such good effect, making Susan possibly her most endearing, and appealing role to date, and entirely worthy of the movie itself.

For the best thing about Spy is that it’s consistently funny, whether it’s subverting genre conventions by thrusting the backroom girls into the spotlight, making Fine a preening douche, Ford a ridiculous blowhard, or giving Susan some of the worst makeovers in history for her undercover identities, the movie has great fun in spoofing the spy/action movie while maintaining a more serious subplot about Susan’s gaining enough self-confidence to fulfil her potential as an agent. That Feig’s script has the confidence to attempt both, and then succeed with seeming ease, adds to the movie’s lustre, and makes it all the more enjoyable.

As already noted, McCarthy delivers her best role to date, and she’s matched by the surprise – and inspired – casting of Statham as the kind of agent who can’t pass up an opportunity for a bit of self-aggrandisement. On this evidence, Statham should do more comedy, as here he’s hilarious, shouting and swearing like a man on the brink of a psychotic break, and making the kinds of boasts that are so absurd he doesn’t know how idiotic he sounds. But where Ford’s boasting is a highlight, he’s still outdone by the insults traded between Susan and Rayna, some of which are the funniest putdowns heard in recent years (and particularly when it comes to Rayna’s hairdo). Byrne and McCarthy have a great time deadpanning their lines at each other, and so does the audience as each insult escalates their dislike of each other’s character.

In support, Serafinowicz is irrepressible as Susan’s Italian contact, Aldo, for whom large bosoms are the key to happiness; Law is debonair, charming and an unfeeling arse; Janney is the CIA chief who sees promise in Susan’s wish to work in the field; Cannavale doesn’t really feature until the last twenty minutes; 50 Cent plays himself; and in a role that doesn’t see her stretch too far from her British TV persona, Hart racks up enough laughs as Nancy to have done her US career no harm at all. In short, it’s a great cast, and they all deliver as required.

The European locations are filmed by Robert D. Yeoman with that travelogue sheen that enhances even the most attractive of regions or cities, and as a result the movie is attractive to look at throughout. The music by Theodore Shapiro is occasionally overbearing, but this is due to its prominence in the sound mix rather than any compositional issues, and McCarthy’s wardrobe, courtesy of Christine Bieselin Clark, fluctuates from plain and functional to horrendous to glamorous (though her final look in the movie makes her appear too much like Dawn French for comfort). And the action scenes are splendidly realised, including a terrific fight between McCarthy and  Fakhri that wouldn’t look out of place in a… well, in a Jason Statham movie.

Rating: 8/10 – consistently entertaining, Spy is a treat for fans of McCarthy and spy spoofs in general; with a script that knows when to be serious and when to be gloriously silly, it’s a movie that is infectious in its desire to please its audience, something it does with no small amount of style and wit.

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Spooks: The Greater Good (2015)

14 Thursday May 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Bharat Nalluri, Bombing, Drama, Espionage, Harry Pearce, Jennifer Ehle, Kit Harington, MI5, Peter Firth, Review, Spies, Terrorism, Thriller, TV series

Spooks The Greater Good

D: Bharat Nalluri / 104m

Cast: Peter Firth, Kit Harington, Jennifer Ehle, Elyes Gabel, Tim McInnerny, David Harewood, Lara Pulver, Eleanor Matsuura, Elliot Levey

While being taken across London under armed guard, MI5 lose the US’s most wanted terrorist, Adem Qasim (Elyes), in a rescue bid by his followers. It’s clear to the officer in charge of the operation, Harry Pearce (Firth), that Qasim’s escape was helped along by someone on the inside. However, he’s not short of suspects, from his own boss, Oliver Mace (McInnerney), to MI5 bigwig Geraldine Maltby (Ehle), US liaison Emerson (Levey), and British politician Francis Warrender (Harewood). Any of them could have been responsible; with MI5’s standing in the international community at an all-time low, it’s the perfect opportunity for the US to subsume MI5 within its own intelligence organisation.

To weed out the mole in MI5, Harry enlists ex-field operative Will Holloway (Harington), but not before he’s tracked down Qasim and made a deal with him: in exchange for arranging for Qasim’s wife to be released from a Russian prison, Harry will be given a phone number that will reveal the mole’s identity. Trusting no one else, Harry disappears, leaving Will to track down the mole from inside MI5. With his superiors uncertain if Harry has changed sides, or is working from his own agenda, he becomes as much of a target as Qasim. Aided by one of the officers, Erin Watts (Pulver) who was on the guard detail when Qasim escaped, Will learns that an order was given that requests for aerial support were to be ignored, and for the security teams not to engage with Qasim’s men.

Meanwhile, Qasim presses on with his plans to plant bombs across London. He uses a suicide bomber to set off an explosion in London’s West End, at an event attended by Warrender, who is killed. With another bombing planned to happen soon, Harry discovers that Qasim’s wife is dead. In a race to stop the bombing and still find out who the mole is in MI5, Harry must join with Will in trying to find a way to convince Qasim that his wife is still alive, and to get hold of the phone number he needs to ferret them out. Enlisting the help of communications analyst Hannah Santo (Matsuura) to impersonate Qasim’s wife, a meeting is arranged to take place on Waterloo Bridge. But when it all goes wrong, Harry sets in motion a sequence of events that could potentially bring down MI5 and make a terrorist hero of Qasim.

Spooks The Greater Good - scene

Last seen in its incarnation as a TV series back in 2011, Spooks: The Greater Good, the long-mooted movie version, finally makes it to cinemas, and proves that, yet again, big screen adaptations of small screen successes are often pale imitations of their predecessors. As it is here, with a story that tries its hardest to be hard-boiled and suitably dour, but which comes across as dull and overly complicated.

Part of the problem is that the script – by returning writers Jonathan Brackley and Sam Vincent – makes things incredibly easy for Harry (the speed with which he tracks down Qasim after his escape) and incredibly difficult for Will (he’s arrested and faces extraordinary rendition at one point). Also, the script doesn’t clarify how MI5 can know Harry’s whereabouts in, say, Berlin, but never come close to arresting him – until he needs them to, that is. (There’s a laughably awful scene where Harry and Will are lured into a trap by someone who’s supposedly on their side, the dynamics of which are so badly set up, most viewers will be scratching their heads and saying, “Was it this bad as a TV series?”)

Whether it was or not – and critical consensus states it wasn’t – this movie outing is likely to tarnish the series’ reputation, replete as it is with espionage thriller clichés (is that a piece of conveniently incriminating evidence that’s been found in the waste basket?), and by-the-numbers performances (McInnerny makes a character he’s played before sound like nothing more than the world’s most obnoxious, clueless boss ever). The movie also seems reluctant to make Qasim really villainous. This leads to a twist in the narrative that induces more head scratching, and further leads to the movie’s big showdown, in which we learn that any perimeter breach of MI5’s HQ won’t be detected until the intruders have made it quite a way inside. It’s moments like these that undermine the movie’s good intentions and spoil the series’ reputation for intelligence and provocative storytelling.

Reprising his character from the series’, Firth is annoyingly enigmatic in the kind of role that can be boiled down to the phrase, “I know something you don’t know”. He flits in and out of the story, prompting angry outbursts from the other characters, and as mentioned above, moving around with impunity. Firth does what he can, but you can tell he’s not feeling it, and by the movie’s end he looks as tired as a man would be if he were waiting for a better, less banal line of dialogue to finish off with. Cynics might argue that Harington has been brought in to do all the physical stuff that Firth can’t manage anymore, but those who are even more cynical will recognise that he’s the international draw meant to attract foreign – sorry, American – audiences. He’s not given much to do other than run around a lot and look puzzled/upset/betrayed as each scene demands, but he acquits himself well enough, and seems aware of just what his role is in the overall production. As for the rest of the cast, Ehle is as cool and mysterious as her character requires her to be, while as Qasim, Elyes looks as if he’s just taken time off from shooting 2016’s Most Hunkiest Terrorists Calendar.

Another stalwart from the series’, Nalluri fails to inject any urgency into proceedings, and leaves the movie feeling run-of-the-mill and retaining a TV vibe that doesn’t suit the movie at all. Once again, London is insufficiently used as a backdrop (overhead establishing shots abound to little effect) and the use of Waterloo Bridge and the National Theatre building soon palls once the viewer realises that nothing too exciting is going to happen in either location. With its dull, gritty colour scheme as well, it’s not a visually interesting movie to watch either, and even though Hubert Taczanowski’s photography reflects the darker recesses of espionage work and its human casualties, there are too many occasions where the foregrounds merge into the backgrounds, giving the movie a sense that it lacks depth in both its visuals and its characters.

Rating: 5/10 – while a good idea on paper, Spooks: The Greater Good proves to be a turgid, uninspired affair that skimps on thrills in favour of too many scenes where characters’ question each other’s loyalties; with a pedestrian feel about it that stops the viewer from engaging with it properly, the movie fails to exploit the drama inherent in the world it explores, and remains a missed opportunity.

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Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

08 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Colin Firth, Drama, Eggsy, Mark Strong, Matthew Vaughn, Michael Caine, Review, Samuel L. Jackson, SIM cards, Spies, Taron Egerton, Thriller, Valentine

Kingsman The Secret Service

D: Matthew Vaughn / 129m

Cast: Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Michael Caine, Sofia Boutella, Sophie Cookson, Edward Holcroft, Mark Hamill, Samantha Womack, Geoff Bell, Jack Davenport

1997. While on a mission in the Middle East, Kingsman secret agent Harry Hart (code named Galahad) (Firth) makes a mistake that costs the life of his protege. He visits the man’s wife, Michelle (Womack), and their young son, who is known as ‘Eggsy’. He gives Eggsy a medal and tells him if ever he needs a favour, to ring the number on the back of the medal and say the phrase, “Oxfords not brogues”.

Eight years later, one of Harry’s fellow agents, Lancelot (Davenport) is killed while trying to rescue a kidnapped professor (Hamill). As the membership of Kingsman demands a continuous number of agents, Hart and his remaining colleagues are tasked by the service’s head, Arthur (Caine), with finding a replacement for him. Meanwhile, Eggsy’s home life hasn’t improved. His mother is in an abusive relationship with Dean (Bell), and he and his friends are bullied by Dean’s gang. When Eggsy steals  one of the gang’s car he ends up being arrested. Remembering the medal, Eggsy calls the number and repeats the phrase. Soon after he is released and finds himself in the company of Harry.

While all this is going on, the kidnapper of the professor, tech-billionaire and radical environmentalist Richmond Valentine (Jackson) is blackmailing or kidnapping important world figures in order to support his scheme to reduce the world population through the free dispersal of SIM cards adapted for use in any mobile phone. With Kingsman becoming aware of his activities, Eggsy agrees to undergo the training required to become a Kingsman agent. While he competes against the other candidates, including Roxy (Cookson) and Charlie (Holcroft), Harry pays Valentine a visit to find out more about his plans and eventually discovers that the billionaire is planning a test of his SIM cards at a church in the Deep South.

Eggsy does well enough in his training to reach the final stage where it’s between him and Roxy for the position of the new Lancelot. But his confidence and commitment is rocked by the task required of him, and in the Deep South, Harry’s infiltration of the congregation leads to an unexpected and shocking development…

Kingsman The Secret Service - scene

If Matthew Vaughn only ever made comic book adaptations from now until the end of time, it would be a wonderful outcome for movie lovers everywhere. Following on from Kick-Ass (2010) and X-Men: First Class (2011), Kingsman: The Secret Service is a razor-sharp, highly entertaining spy spoof that retains enough drama to give it the edge it almost doesn’t need. It’s a movie that is both self-referential and iconic, and shows just how this sort of material should be handled: with obvious love and affection.

Adapting Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons’ comic book The Secret Service, Vaughn and screenwriter Jane Goldman have created a world where the notion of a “gentleman spy” is still very highly regarded – by the spies themselves, and by the villain of the piece – and where a certain level of style is a necessity. It’s an Old Boys network, run as an elitist organisation that works so far behind the scenes no one’s ever heard of them. With its agents named after characters from Arthurian legend, and its adoption of high-tech weapons to back up each agent’s physical prowess, the Secret Service is a potent mix of the old and the new. From its bulletproof umbrellas to its poisoned knife tipped shoes to its underground hangar full of jets and helicopters and APC’s, this is an organisation that is serious about what it does, but also knows how to have fun while doing it.

The plot is straight out of the Sixties, with a megalomaniac threatening to destroy the world unless his demands are met, his ultra-dangerous sidekick – here Boutella’s artificial limbed killing machine, Gazelle – a variety of ingenious gadgets and some of the sharpest outfits this side of a Milan catwalk. As befits a Bondian villain, Valentine has a mountain lair with enough rough-hewn corridors for Eggsy to kill dozens of his henchmen, and he has a turncoat (or two) within the Kingsman organisation. It’s all presented with a splendid amount of panache (and above all, style), and Vaughn never loses sight of how important these aspects are in the grand scheme of things.

The director is more than ably supported by a first-rate cast that sees Firth cast entirely against type (but boy is he a great choice for the role), Jackson use a lisp to underline the absurdity of his character’s ambitions, Egerton grab the opportunity of a lifetime with both hands, Strong reinforce his status as one of the finest actors around (even if his Scottish accent wavers a bit), Caine provide gravitas and just a pinch of arrogance, and in a minor role as a kidnapped Scandinavian princess, Hanna Alström almost steals the movie with an offer Eggsy can’t refuse.

But what Kingsman: The Secret Service is most likely to be remembered for is the scene at the church, a technically impressive, devastatingly violent, gratuitously vicious, and brutally in-your-face sequence where the full effects of Valentine’s plan are felt. The camera swoops in and out and around the action, keeping its focus on Harry and never once letting up on the audience, as every blow and gunshot and stabbing movement is choreographed to furious perfection. It makes the night club sequence in John Wick (2014) look anaemic by comparison, and is all the more startling and effective by being almost balletic in its blood-soaked aesthetic.

Kingsman The Secret Service - scene2

Of course, while the violence is as bone-crunching and quasi-sadistic as you might expect from Vaughn, there’s also a great deal of humour, along with the underlying theme of finding your place in the world. It’s a rich mixture of pointed comedy and heightened violence, and as with Kick-Ass, Vaughn succeeds in ensuring neither element overwhelms the other, leaving the movie to find its own level throughout and proving an exhilarating mix of both. He’s further supported by dazzling cinematography by George Richmond, and there’s a terrific score by Henry Jackman and Matthew Margetson that uses various motifs from other spy movies and still sounds fresh. And of course, special mention must be made of the costumes by Arianne Phillips, her bespoke suits and accessories all now available for the gentleman spy in your life.

Rating: 8/10 – a little too long, with the final showdown in Valentine’s lair proving an unnecessarily two-part affair, Kingsman: The Secret Service is still a stylish, uncompromising action thriller that delights at every turn; Firth is simply superb, and Egerton is a rising star with bags of ability – and then some.

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The November Man (2014)

15 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Action, Belgrade, Bill Smitrovich, Chechnya, Drama, Luke Bracey, Moscow, Olga Kurylenko, Pierce Brosnan, Review, Roger Donaldson, Spies, Thriller, War criminal

November Man, The

D: Roger Donaldson / 108m

Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Luke Bracey, Olga Kurylenko, Bill Smitrovich, Lazar Ristovski, Eliza Taylor, Caterina Scorsone, Will Patton, Mediha Musliovic, Amila Terzimehic, Patrick Kennedy

Montenegro, 2008. CIA agent Peter Devereaux (Brosnan) and his protegé David Mason (Bracey) are on an assignment to stop the assassination of a visiting dignitary. Devereaux takes the man’s place and while they identify and kill the would-be assassin, it comes at a price: Mason’s lack of experience causes the death of a young boy.

Lausanne, 2013. Devereaux is now retired and owns a small lakeside cafe. One day he’s approached by his old handler, Hanley (Smitrovich), with a job. Devereaux’s ex-lover, Natalia (Musliovic) is in trouble. She is in Moscow working undercover as an aide to Russian President-elect Arkady Federov (Ristovski). Natalia has uncovered intelligence that she says will destroy Federov’s chances of becoming president, but won’t reveal any details unless she’s extracted. Devereaux agrees to get her out. On the day of the extraction, Natalia obtains the evidence she needs against Federov but her actions are discovered. With her position compromised, and with Federov’s men chasing her, she evades capture long enough for Devereaux to find her. However, Hanley’s superior, Weinstein (Patton) gives an order that leads the extraction team – led by Mason – to kill her.

Devereaux kills the rest of Mason’s team but leaves him alive. While Mason is tasked with tracking down his mentor – Weinstein believes Devereaux and Hanley are in collusion, but doesn’t know why – Devereaux seeks to find out just what was going on in Moscow and why Natalia was killed. Using the evidence she gathered and was able to give him before she died, Devereaux tries to find a young woman named Mira Filipova; she is the only witness to war crimes Federov committed in Chechnya, and he will stop at nothing to silence her. With the only clue to her whereabouts being her association with a Belgrade women’s aid centre, Devereaux – and an assassin (Terzimehic) sent by Federov – attempts to find out more from centre worker Alice Fournier (Kurylenko). They go on the run together, chased by both Federov’s assassin and Mason, but managing to stay one step ahead of both. Along the way Devereaux tests Mason’s resolve, learns the truth about Federov’s involvement in a bombing that started the Chechnya war, and finds his twelve year old daughter, Lucy, put in harm’s way.

_LAS9652.NEF

An old-fashioned spy thriller where the Russians are – ostensibly – the bad guys, and the CIA is equally corrupt, this adaptation of the novel There Are No Spies by Bill Granger (and the seventh in a series of novels featuring Devereaux) has a simple, retro feel to it, but the now over-familiar Belgrade locations and haphazard plotting, as well as some disastrous attempts at characterisation, leave the movie looking and feeling disjointed and ill-conceived. From its opening sequence, The November Man makes a valiant attempt to bring the viewer on board but then keeps them at a distance thanks to its unfailing ability to jettison credibility at every turn.

Despite the retro feel – at one point Devereaux picks a lock the old-fashioned way – The November Man makes the occasional attempt to appear and feel relevant, but making Devereaux seem like an ageing Jason Bourne merely highlights the scarcity of original thought on display. The script, by Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek, is littered with ill-considered and poorly written scenes that fail to advance the plot, and which give the impression that, rather than adapting Granger’s novel, they were making things up as they went along. There’s one very disturbing, completely out of left field scene where Devereaux cuts the femoral artery of Mason’s neighbour, Sarah (Taylor), leaving her to die unless Mason saves her (and doesn’t pursue his mentor). It’s an incredibly stupid scene, badly written and directed, and serves only to show how determined the movie is to get it wrong.

The basic plot is sound if unoriginal – someone in the CIA colluded with Federov to instigate the war in Chechnya, but who? – but somewhere along the way the need to add in as many convoluted twists and turns as possible has distorted the movie’s focus and made it more ludicrous than convincing. There’s also some wildly absurd action beats that defy logic, such as when Mason drives at full speed into a wall in order to kill the agent he’s riding with (don’t ask!); seconds later, Mason’s running away from the crash as if nothing’s happened.

Against all this, not even Brosnan can rescue things, even when running along alleyways and hotel corridors like he did in his Bond days. He’s also tasked with constantly looking aggrieved (and judging by how badly the movie’s turned out, he probably knew something was up during filming), but it’s the continual change back and forth between cold-blooded killer and sensitive family man that fails to have any impact. Thanks to the script, Brosnan is effectively playing two different Devereauxs, but they don’t fit together (not even once), leaving the actor struggling to combine the two into one recognisable character. It’s no surprise then that the rest of the cast fare equally badly, though Bracey deserves special mention for the woodenness of his expressions and the awkwardness of his line readings. Kurylenko has a little more to do than be the female lead who gets to “stand-next-to-the-star-and-look-pretty”, and Smitrovich does aggressive even when the script doesn’t call for it.

In the end, The November Man is a soggy mess of a movie that does just enough to hold the attention but without putting in too much effort. Donaldson directs as if he’s only seen every other page of the script, and the location photography by Romain Lacourbas is perfunctory, leaving the backdrop of the movie looking less than interesting. And John Gilbert’s editing lacks the necessary punch and energy to make the action scenes anything more than humdrum and predictably constructed.

Rating: 4/10 – weak in almost every department, The November Man is a dire attempt at replicating the kind of spy thrillers that popped up every other month throughout the Eighties; it doesn’t work here, and hasn’t done in any of the three hundred similar movies that Steven Seagal has made in the last ten years either.

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Zeta One (1969)

18 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Aliens, Angvians, Charles Hawtrey, Comedy, James Robertson Justice, Michael Cort, Nudity, Review, Sci-fi, Sexploitation, Spies, Zeta magazine

Zeta One

aka The Love Factor

D: Michael Cort / 84m

Cast: James Robertson Justice, Charles Hawtrey, Robin Hawdon, Yutte Stensgaard, Anna Gaël, Brigitte Skay, Dawn Addams, Wendy Lingham, Valerie Leon, Lionel Murton

Based on a story published in Zeta, a short-lived magazine from the 60’s that specialised in glamour/art photography, Zeta One concerns a race of women called the Angvians who live in a separate dimension to ours and kidnap women to ensure their race doesn’t die out. Secret agent James Word (Hawdon) is tasked with finding out where they come from, and to stop the nefarious Major Bourdon (Justice) and his henchman Swyne (Hawtrey) from succeeding with their own plans for the Angvians.

At this point I should mention that Zeta One is a sexploitation movie with sci-fi and spy movie trappings. So there’s plenty of partial and occasionally full-frontal nudity (though thankfully not involving either Justice or Hawtrey), and the kind of plot that involves nubile young women running around in next to nothing for no particular reason at all. There’s also a pantechnicon that serves as the device that enables trans-dimensional travel, a talking lift that won’t deposit anyone on the thirteenth floor because it’s superstitious, Angvian women who can kill by “shooting” with their hands, and Walter Sparrow as a strip club employee who repeats that all the girls inside are “lovely” and makes it look as if he got his lines mixed up.

The main storyline involves Bourdon trying to get a spy into the Angvians’ lair. He discovers that the Angvians’ next target is a stripper, Edwina Strain (Lingham). He kidnaps her first, gets her to swallow a tracking device (in pill form), then allows her to be kidnapped again (this time by the Angvians). The leader of the Angvians, Zeta (Addams), is aware of Bourdon’s game – though not the tracking device – and also the involvement of Word. She monitors everything and bides her time until one of her agents, Clotho (Gaël), is about to be killed by Bourdon. Then she instructs several barely clothed Angvians to eliminate Bourdon and his henchmen.

Zeta One - scene

Zeta One was obviously a low-budget movie (there certainly wasn’t much spent on wardrobe), and the deficiencies of such a shoot are there to see on screen. Seen now, over forty years after it was first shown, it has a fascinating my-god-did-they-really-do-that quality. Hawdon spends most of his screen time in bed with either Stensgaard or Gaël, and turns up at Bourdon’s base of operations after Bourdon’s been defeated (and only after he’s put on some waders!). Justice and Hawtrey look embarrassed and non-plussed respectively, while Addams does the least she can in each scene she’s in. Why any of them are in the movie is a good question.

So the movie itself is cheesy, not even remotely prurient, and while there is a lot of female flesh on display these aren’t supermodels we’re talking about.  It’s also slow in parts, notably at the beginning, and Michael Cort’s direction is hit-and-miss, the same as his script (he co-wrote it with Alistair MacKenzie), and the locations are underused. And yet… there are still things to enjoy, or that resonate. There’s the aforementioned lift, which comes completely out of left field; Word vs a revolving door; Hawtrey peering out of a phone box; Justice being kneed in the balls by Gaël and calling her a “little bitch”; the strip poker game that neither Hawdon or Stensgaard can win; and most disturbingly, the sight of Justice and Hawtrey standing over a topless Angvian who’s tied to a rack. On reflection it’s these little moments that make watching the movie worthwhile.

Rating: 5/10 – better perhaps than it should be and only because of its quirkiness (which I’m still not sure was entirely deliberate).

Originally posted on thedullwoodexperiment website.

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