The November Man

Director: Roger Donaldson
Screenplay: Michael Finch & Karl Gajdusek (based on the novel There Are No Spies by Bill Granger)
Stars: Pierce Brosnan (Peter Devereaux), Luke Bracey (Mason), Olga Kurylenko (Alice), Bill Smitrovich (Hanley), Amila Terzimehic (Alexa), Lazar Ristovski (Arkady Federov), Mediha Musliovic (Natalia Ulanova), Eliza Taylor (Sarah), Caterina Scorsone (Celia), Akie Kotabe (Meyers), Will Patton (Perry Weinstein), Patrick Kennedy (Edgar Simpson), Dragan Marinkovic (Denisov), Ben Willens (Agent Jones), Milos Timotijevic (Federov’s Chief of Staff)
MPAA Rating: R
Year of Release: 2014
Country: U.S.
The November Man
The November ManIn The November Man, Pierce Brosnan returns to the familiar territory of the spy genre for the first time in more than a decade, although this time he is not playing a suave James Bond fantasy figure, but rather a retired, cynical, and extremely cold-hearted former CIA operative who is brought back into the fray and finds himself in the crosshairs of both the Russians and the Americans. Brosnan does everything he can to erase our memories of his days as 007, giving his antiheroic character, Peter Devereaux, a sometimes frightening intensity of purpose and lack of hesitation when it comes to inflicting violence if it serves his own agenda. Brosnan has rarely been so cold and calculating, and his deepening character lines and graying hair play as tribute to a life that has left his character hardened.

The plot, which is loosely derived from the 1987 novel There Are No Spies, the seventh installment of Bill Granger’s “November Man” series, is a typical stew of spy shenanigans, with characters crossing and double-crossing each other within a slowly escalating torrent of murky agendas, hidden pasts, and secret identities. Devereaux is brought out of retirement in Switzerland by his old boss, CIA handler John Hanley (Bill Smitrovich), to pull Natalia Ulanova (Mediha Musliovic), a deep-cover CIA operative, out of Russia, where she has been working as the assistant to Arkady Federov (Lazar Ristovski), the country’s leading presidential candidate. He is also a former army general who can be tied to war crimes by a source that Natalia will reveal only after she has been brought safely out of the country.

Devereaux’s rescue mission is complicated by the fact that the CIA is unaware that Hanley has pressed him back into service, so he finds himself going up against a rival CIA team led by his former protégé David Mason (Luke Bracey), a handsome up-and-comer who parted ways with Devereaux after his ignoring orders while protecting a U.S. ambassador led to a child’s death. Thus, the former mentor and mentee become sparring partners in a game of spy chess with an escalating body count—and that doesn’t even take into account the presence of Alexa (Amila Terzimehic), Federov’s personal assassin who is busy taking out anyone with ties to the politician’s past. Devereaux eventually teams with a woman named Alice (Olga Kurylenko), a refugee caseworker who claims to know the woman who can tie Federov to his war crimes.

And there is more—much, much more, in fact—as the film unfolds, with each scene revealing a new facet to someone’s personality, motive, or identity. Fans of the genre will find much to chew on, and a lot of it feels like a particularly rough John le Carré potboiler (Granger is often thought of in genre circles as the American answer to Le Carré). Screenwriters Michael Finch (Predators) and Karl Gajdusek (Oblivion) take a great deal of liberty with the source material, especially in restaging it to modern times and using the second Chechnyan War as the backdrop. As with most stories of this sort, there is a great deal of hard cynicism at its core, as no one is fully heroic nor fully villainous, and even those who appear to be the worst have motives that transcend their personal agendas (the closest thing the film has to an all-out villain is Federov, who Lazar Ristovski plays as little more than a smarmy opportunist in an expensive suit).

There is plenty in the narrative department to keep the gears churning, and The November Man is fairly engrossing, as long as you can keep up with all the moves. Director Roger Donaldson has specialized in action thrillers, and in the process made some very good ones (2008’s The Bank Job, 2003’s Thirteen Days) and some not-so-good ones (1994’s inexplicable remake of Sam Peckinpah’s The Getaway). Unfortunately, some of his aesthetic proclivities provide The November Man with its weakest links, specifically his tendency to punch up the action in a film that seems otherwise designed to remain down to earth. Thus, he punctuates numerous scenes with sub-John Woo physical calisthenics and slow-motion violence that does nothing to enhance the intensity and everything to divert our attention (did we really need a slow-mo cutaway to a nameless Russian thug’s head bloodying the floor after he is thrown off a balcony?). It feels as if Donaldson doesn’t trust the audience to be fully immersed in the espionage theatrics and therefore must throw us periodic bones in the form of over-the-top action sequences that unnecessarily and awkwardly transform Devereaux from a world-wearied spy into a lithe superman who defies the laws of physics.

Copyright ©2014 James Kendrick

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Overall Rating: (2.5)




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