The November Man (2014)
Cast includes: Pierce Brosnan (Golden Eye), Luke Bracey (G.I. Joe: Retaliation), Olga Kurylenko (Oblivion), Bill Smitrovich (Iron Man)
Director: Roger Donaldson (The Recruit, The World’s Fastest Indian)
Genre: Suspense Thriller (108 minutes)
Montenegro 2008, CIA agent Peter Devereaux breaks up a cozy scene at the sidewalk café. Apparently, his “protégé” Mason doesn’t realize the dangers of romantic attachments. “Agent falls in love with a girl. Girl gets kidnapped...” Peter spells it out. “If you feel the need for a relationship, get a dog.” Just then, the call comes… a credible threat. Devereaux takes the ambassador’s place, hoping to draw out the assassin. Mason is on the roof with a high-powered rifle. The scene is chaotic… Peter tells Mason not to shoot, but he does anyway. Peter gets out alive, but an innocent bystander… a kid… is shot dead. Mason clearly doesn’t have enough respect for authority or for the lives of innocent people.
Five years later in Lausanne Switzerland, there’s a man at the seaside café who’s looking for Peter Devereaux. Peter knows him… used to be Peter’s boss. He has a folder full of photos of dead agents… good agents… all working on the same assignment. Now they have Natalia… she’s gotten very close to Arkady Federov… the man who’s likely to become the next Russian president. She has a name… a name that could derail Federov’s bid for the presidency, but she won’t give it to anyone unless they bring her out… and she asked specifically for Devereaux. “If you want her to live, you’ve gotta get back in the game.” The extraction turns into a tense, high-speed chase, with CIA drones… “eyes on the prize”… with both Russians and CIA agents in hot pursuit. But first, we realize that Natalia and Peter previously had a romantic attachment… the kind that Peter had warned Mason about. Anyway, things go very badly, but Peter does get that name… Mira Filipova. He also finds out that it’s not just the Russians who are trying to kill him… it’s the CIA, too! The only reason he escapes is because the agent they sent is none other than Peter’s former trainee, Mason… still not respecting authority. Peter walks away for now, but this thing is far from over.
The November Man isn’t going to win high acclaim from film critics, but it has everything suspense thriller fans look for… a multi-layered plot with exciting twists and turns… enough to get the adrenaline flowing, but not so complex that we can’t follow it. And if we don’t overthink the details, it hangs together fairly well. Although it’s not rich in character development, we like the characters we’re supposed to like, we dislike the villains, and we’re surprised by the double-crosses. Beyond that, it has interesting, good looking characters, gorgeous scenery, plenty of pyrotechnics, good music and a relatively coherent script with some clever lines. Pierce Brosnan is a credible ex-CIA agent… man of action, but thankfully not an unrealistic superhero. In trying to find Mira Filipova, Peter believes Alice may hold the key. But for some reason, someone’s now trying to kill her. And with a CIA assassin trying to kill him, it’s just about impossible to find safe haven. “Letting you die was never an option,” he assures her after an especially narrow scrape. Peter might have been the perfect spy once, but now he should pay more attention to his own teaching… “If you feel the need for a relationship, get a dog.”
3 popped kernels
Ex-CIA agent gets brought back for a critical rescue that goes terribly wrong
Popcorn Profile
Rated: R (Violence)
Audience: Young Adults & Grown-ups
Gender Style: Bold
Distribution: Mainstream Wide Release
Mood: Neutral
Tempo: Zips Right Along
Visual Style: High-End Production
Nutshell: Spy thriller
Language: True to life
