The November Man

For F*** Magazine

THE NOVEMBER MAN

Director : Roger Donaldson
Cast : Pierce Brosnan, Luke Bracey, Olga Kurylenko, Eliza Taylor, Catherine Scorsone, Bill Smitrovich, Will Patton, Lazar Ristovski, Patrick Kennedy
Genre : Action/Thriller
Opens : 28 August 2014
Rating : NC-16 (Sexual Scenes and Violence)
Running time: 108 mins

           In The Tailor of Panama and Matador, Pierce Brosnan played on his persona as the world’s most famous fictional spy. He does it again but in a markedly more serious manner here, as retired CIA agent Peter Devereaux. Devereaux violently barges out of his quiet retirement in picturesque Lausanne, Switzerland to embark on a very personal mission. Social worker Alice Fournier (Kurylenko) has valuable evidence that could topple the political career of Federov (Ristovski), poised to become the next Russian president. Devereaux must protect her to uncover the far-reaching conspiracy but this brings in him conflict with David Mason (Bracey), his former pupil at the CIA. The further Devereaux digs, the more danger he puts him and the few he keeps close to him in, especially when it transpires that a CIA official may have been in cahoots with Federov.

            Based on Bill Granger’s novel There Are No Spies, the seventh in the November Man book series but the first to be adapted, this is a film that is competently made but is filled with elements that aficionados of the espionage thriller genre are likely all too familiar with. The film is built upon the theme of spies entering relationships and having families, only for those they hold dear to become casualties in wars that are not theirs to fight. Veteran director Roger Donaldson has tackled the genre before with No Way Out and The Recruit, now turning out a post-Bourne spy movie that is tough and gritty without being self-consciously so. In the States, this is rated R. The blood, swearing and requisite gratuitous scene set in a strip club go some way to separate it from the PG-13 action thriller pack, if only superficially.

            Brosnan is actually even more convincing as a spy here than in his Bond films over a decade ago. Eschewing the wink-and-a-smile charm he is so famous for, Brosnan plays Devereaux as grizzled and lethal. If he’s planning a Liam Neeson-style “man of geri-action” career ahead, he’s going about it better than, say, Kevin Costner is. He plays the heated confrontations with a surprising amount of intensity, especially given that his Bond was never known for being particularly tough. It’s a pity then that Luke Bracey is bland as Mason, the Australian actor never rising above “standard issue imported Hollywood pretty boy”. A better actor could have made the strained mentor-mentee relationship between Devereaux and Mason more compelling.

            Let’s face it, former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko is known more her exotic, striking appearance than her acting chops. However, she brings a good deal of vulnerability and is also able to bring out the canniness beneath the surface of the Alice Fournier character, offering hints that there is more to her than she is letting on. Lazar Ristovski is also a sufficiently slimy and unlikeable as Federov without overplaying the stereotype.

            While many spy thrillers fall apart as they head into their conclusions, The November Man actually becomes a good deal more interesting in its last act, the twists and reveals effective and somewhat plausible. This doesn’t change that it follows many conventions of the genre and that it is poorly paced, the action sequences few and far between. Some visual clichés are employed too – there’s actually a scene of someone jumping sideways through a door into a room, firing a gun in slow motion. Ultimately, it is Brosnan who makes this worthwhile, kicking ass and taking names far more his wheelhouse than struggling through Abba songs.

Summary: A conventional espionage thriller that mitigates its sense of “been there, done that” by ramping up the tension in the third act. Brosnan’s late-career action hero resurgence also makes this worth a look.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Oblivion

Movie Review                                                                                                                 15/4/13

OBLIVION

2013

Starring: Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Morgan Freeman

Directed by: Joseph Kosinski

            Joseph Kosinski was the man who took us back to the grid with 2010’s Tron: Legacy. While remaining in the sci-fi realm, he heads in another direction, bringing audiences a post-apocalyptic vision of Earth where the last man left is Tom Cruise.

            Cruise plays Jack Harper, a technician in charge of maintaining the drones that patrol Earth, the planet having been nearly destroyed by an alien invasion 60 years earlier. Jack lives and works with Victoria (Riseborough), but is mostly occupied with dreams of a mysterious woman he has never met but somehow remembers. In the wreck of a crash-landed spaceship, Harper discovers Julia Rusakova (Kurylenko), whom he identifies as the woman in his dreams. Jack also comes across a rag-tag gang of survivors led by Malcolm Beech (Freeman), who helps him realise that there’s a massive conspiracy afoot and that the life he and Victoria have been living isn’t all it seems.

            Oblivion is ostensibly an adaptation of a graphic novel Kosinksi and writer Arvid Nelson worked on that has been delayed and is yet to be published. The film is, first and foremost, quite the visual experience. Claudio Miranda, recent Oscar winner for Life of Pi, is the director of photography and manages to find the beautiful in the desolate. A lot of contemporary sci-fi films tend to be hyper-kinetic, stuffed to the gills with quick cuts and stylistic flourishes. Oblivion is thus very refreshing, possessing a rare, quiet grandeur and a look that combines sleek and shiny futuristic designs with the vastness of a ravaged earth. We do get some cool action sequences on top of that, most notably an intense dogfight in which Jack in his “bubbleship” craft is pursued by a pack of vicious drones.

            This is very much the Tom Cruise show, the Jack Harper character receiving the lion’s share of storytelling attention. Here, Cruise shows yet again why he’s managed to maintain considerable longevity as a big-name movie star – he’s an actor who can command attention. At the hands of a lesser performer, it’s likely that Jack Harper might blend into his bleak surroundings. Olga Kurylenko does the “mysterious exotic figure” thing well and Andrea Riseborough has a sexy/playful scene in which she takes a night swim all siren-like. What’s nice about the characterisation is that neither female lead is a guns-blazing Ellen Ripley-esque cliché. However, nobody really gets much development beyond Harper himself; this reviewer wishes that we learnt more about Beech and his gang of survivors, who tend to feel a bit Mad Max-ish at times.

            The film’s central plot twist is pretty much par for the course when it comes to science fiction storytelling devices and it also wraps up a little too neatly when a degree of ambiguity might have done it some good. There are a few interesting elements that spice up the ending and in the end, it doesn’t feel like a cop-out, nor does it undermine anything that went before (as twist endings often can).

            Oblivion is the sort of film that’s probably a lot less contemplative than it seems, and while it isn’t particularly engaging on a story or character level, the world that Kosinki and his team have constructed is a masterpiece (enhanced by M83’s atmospheric techno score) and it just pulls the viewer in. While it may not be as deep or thought-provoking as it could have been and might come off feeling too clinical for some, it is still far from superficial and empty and has a fair bit for genre fans to like.

SUMMARY: Wonderful to look at and soak in, Oblivion has a calmness about it that’s hard to find in mainstream sci-fi, but it’s bogged down a tad by narrative loopholes and a less-than-compelling human element.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong