THE NOVEMBER MAN (2014 - ACTION / THRILLER / ESPIONAGE) **1/2 out of ***** or 5 out of 10.
(I guess this is what James Bond does in the off
season...)
CAST:
Pierce Brosnan, Luke Bracey, Olga Kurylenko, Eliza Taylor, Caterina
Scorsone, Bill Smitrovich, Lazar Ristovski, Amila Terzihemic, Mediha Musliovic,
Will Patton, Tara Jevrosimovic.
DIRECTOR:
Roger Donaldson
WARNING:
Some SPOILERS and somewhat uncovincing Bond-Bourne-Taken shenanigans
straight ahead...
IT'S LIKE THIS:
We were going to end our Summer 2014 reviews with THE HUNDRED FOOT
JOURNEY and AS ABOVE SO BELOW, but decided to just shelve them for later. THE HUNDRED FOOT JOURNEY is about the eternally-lovely
Helen Mirren running some restaurant in rural France while competing with the
Indian restaurant next door. Or
something. Anyhow, we're saving that
flick for another special "Food Movie Week" like the one we did a few
years ago. And the reason we nixed AS
ABOVE SO BELOW is because it's a horror movie and, well, we're going to be
reviewing a shitload of those (31, to be exact) starting October 1. No worries, though, because we will dust off
that review when the time is right.
So, that left us with an opening, which we gladly
filled with THE NOVEMBER MAN, Pierce Brosnan's attempt to show that he's still
got some Bond game in him yet. Given
that SKYFALL came out almost two years ago, and BOND 24 hasn't even begun
shooting yet and won't be released until next November, and we've pretty much
already worn out our entire James Bond Blu-Ray collection during our regular
Movie Nights, we're seriously jonesing for some Bond-like action and starting
to get the shakes form 007 withdrawal.
So when THE NOVEMBER MAN came out on its opening weekend, starring
someone who, you know, actually used to be Bond, we were all over that shit
like Garfield on freshly-baked authentic lasagna. Imagine our immense disappointment, however,
when it turned out be more like stale Chef Boyardee. But more on that in the BUT SERIOUSLY portion
of our review...
Mr. Brosnan plays ex-CIA agent Peter
Devereaux. Imagine James Bond, but more
impatient and with grayer hair. We first
meet him during a training session in Montenegro with young upstart agent David
Mason (Luke Bracey), who disobeys Devereaux's orders and ends up screwing up
the op and getting an innocent bystander killed. To make matters worse, the innocent
bystander is just a kid. Not exactly the
best result, I'd say. Disgusted by the
whole cluster fuck, Devereaux ups and turns in his retirement papers and goes
off to be a barista in Switzerland or something. To be fair, though, it looks like he owns the
cafe, too. So I guess it's not too bad
of a comedown.
Anyway, if a cynical ex-CIA agent could just
retire peacefully and run a cafe on the shores of some Swiss lake, undisturbed
by intrigue and mystery and his former boss, Handley (Bill Smitrovich),
unexpectedly showing up with the offer of "one last job," then there
wouldn't be a goddamned movie - and we would be better off throwing another
Bond Marathon party and doing shots everytime Denise Richards spouts
techno-babble in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH.
Thankfully, Handley does shows his fat mug at Devereaux's coffee shop
and - yeah, baby - offers him "one last job."
Sure, Devereaux hems and haws and acts like he's
as happy in Switzerland as Garfield in a pan of lasagna. But we know better. After all, once a spy, always a spy. Right? Soon enough, Devereaux is passing on the
barista duties to his second-in-command and hightailing it back into the Spy
Game. He winds up in Moscow, where he is
assigned to extract deep-cover operative (and ex-gal pal) Natalia Ulanova
(Mediha Musliovic) because her cover has been blown. Big time.
Before Natalia rushes to meet Peter, she manages to steal some
incriminating photos from the office safe of a certain pervert named Arkady
Federov. This wouldn't be so bad, if it
weren't for the slight inconvenience of Federov being just, oh you know, the
President of Russia. God, I hope Putin
doesn't watch this flick. That dude's
dangerously-pissed off enough at the Western World as it is.
Anyhow, Natalia hands off the incriminating
evidence to Devereaux - right before she gets popped in the chest by a
not-so-stray bullet fired by, of all people, David Mason. Remember him from the cluster fuck operation
that opened this film? Yes, folks... he's baaaaaaaaaaack. And ready to fuck up even more shite. Turns out Mason's been holding a grudge
against Devereaux for flunking him in his training - and is ready to even the
score, professionally and personally.
Seems the CIA is pitting Mason and Devereaux against each other - but
for what purpose?
Well, Devereaux starts to investigate and eventually
identifies one of the women in the pictures that Natalia stole as one Mira
Filipova, a Balkan refugee who mysteriously disappeared a few years ago. It seems that President Federov is very
interested in tracking her down because of some dirt she has on him. But where has she disappeared to? One person who may know is Alice Fournier
(Olga Kurylenko), an Eastern European social worker who once handled Mira's
political asylum case. Unfortunately,
right around the time Devereaux tracks down Alice, a vicious assassin named
Alexa (Amila Terzihemic) finds her, too - and all hell breaks loose. And let's not forget Mason who is also
looking for Alice and Mira. Add his ass
to the mix and you've got all the ingredients you need for yet another cluster
fuck.
So... where is Mira? And what does she know that could ruin
President Federov? Does Alice know
something that can help? If so, will she
share it with Devereaux? Or Mason? Will Alexa pop a cap in all their asses? Or will one of Federov's secret service goons
do it for her? Will the baddies comes
after Devereaux and Natalia's daughter, Lucy (Tara Jevrosimovic)? And the most important question of all: why
the fuck is this movie called THE NOVEMBER MAN?
It came out in the summer, for fuck's sake.
Whatever.
Just start shooting the next Bond movie already! I'm getting tired of
bland substitutes!
BUT SERIOUSLY:
Earlier, we joked about how THE NOVEMBER MAN promised to be like
freshly-baked lasagna but wound up more like stale Chef Boyardee. Joking aside, the metaphor is very
apropos. The trailers and press for this
flick, while not really promising anything we hadn't seen before, at least
hinted at a possibly-solid espionage thriller that combines elements of the
Bond and Bourne franchises - with a little bit of TAKEN 1 and 2 mixed in. Unfortunately, though, while it certainly
does juggle all those elements, it does so in a very unremarkable way. The end result is a very strong feeling of
deja-vu and, ultimately, a sense of "why bother?"
The three leads certainly can't be faulted. Pierce Brosnan wears the role of
"world-weary spy" like a second skin, and his years playing James
Bond with layers and complexity serves him well here. He manages to give the paper-thin, borderline
cliche role of Peter Devereaux some gravity that a less talented performer
would not have been able to. Just
imagine how much better this film would have been overall if Brosnan had been
given a real meaty role to play rather than sketchy one that he had to flesh
out on his own.
Luke Bracey is a fresh face and is okay in his
role of "brash protege" to Brosnan's "seasoned pro." Unfortunately, the compelling conflict
between Mason and Devereaux that is hinted at early on in the film is never
given full flight. There is a nice, mean
scene where Devereaux confronts Mason and his new girfriend Sarah (Eliza
Taylor), wherein Devereaux brutally pays Mason back (through Sarah) for killing
Natalia earlier. This brief scene hints
at how much more effective this movie would've been if it didn't try to play it
safe through most of its running time. Indeed, this segment feels like it
belongs in one of the meaner, grittier James Bond films like LICENCE TO KILL
and QUANTUM OF SOLACE that unapologetically took no prisoners. This sequence really stands out all the more
because the rest of THE NOVEMBER MAN is so bland. In the end, though, Bracey is also stuck with
even less of a character than Brosnan, and does what he can with it - but with
less success.
The person who really saves this film and allows
it to get a passing grade is OIga Kurylenko who plays the mysterious Alice
Fournier, who may or may not hold the key to the mystery. Kurylenko was the best thing in the
underrated and misunderstood Bond film QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008), and her character
here feels a bit like a softer reworking (albeit a welcome one) of the
enigmatic, dangerous woman she played in that movie. Whenever she's onscreen, Kurylenko gives this
movie some much-needed energy and emotional pathos. THE NOVEMBER MAN's most satisfying moment is
when Alice defends herself against the relentless assassin, Alexa, without
relying on any of the men around her - and finally makes a big revelation at
the end. Kurylenko's subtle talents
gives this movie what little true feeling it has. As with Brosnan's untapped abilities, imagine
how this movie would have turned out if he and Kurylenko would've been given
some real material to work with. It
would have rivaled even some of the best Bond movies.
Beyond the respectable turns of Brosnan,
Kurylenko, and Bracey in their lead roles, the various characters supporting
them, both good and bad, feel rather generic and almost inter-changeable. The actors playing them do the best they can
to make their parts stand out but they too often blend into the background -
instead of popping and being memorable like the side-players of the best of the
Bourne and Bond films. Also, the script
is strangely all over the place and is remarkably graceless and clunky. I joked to my friend that this movie was "half
of a good movie." What I meant was
there are many potentially-great idea here, but they're all half-baked. While some important revelations and developments (such as the
true identity of Mira Filipova and Mason's conflicted regard for Devereaux) are handled very clumsily and without the proper weight they deserve.
THE NOVEMBER MAN's script also can't decide whether to
focus on Mason and Devereaux's rivalry, or Devereaux and Natalia's past
romantic history, or Mason's relationship with Sarah, or Devereaux's connection
to Alice, or Devereaux's link to his daughter, or the whole Mira Filipova
angle. As a result, none of these elements are adequately addressed. If any one of these threads would
have been teased out sufficiently to form the central narrative cord of THE
NOVEMBER MAN, it would've been a sharper, more potent story. I mean, subplots are fine and even necessary
to enrich and enhance a tale - but you have to know what the true beating heart
of your story is, and always return to that as the movie unfolds, ultimately
coming full circle back to it for an emotionally-satisfying ending. Even the final shot of this film, which
could've closed the film on a somewhat strong note, is fumbled royally.
That THE NOVEMBER MAN is ultimately a
disappointment is made even more puzzling by the fact that it was directed by
Roger Donaldson, who helmed one of my favorite thrillers of all time, NO WAY
OUT - which essentially launched Kevin Costner's career in 1987. That film was the textbook example of how to
create a taut, suspenseful narrative that energetically combines emotional
depth and thrilling setpieces. By
contrast, THE NOVEMBER MAN feels tired and routine - a complete 180 from NO WAY
OUT's pulse-pounding pace and atmosphere.
All in all, though, THE NOVEMBER MAN at least
shows that Pierce Brosnan has still got some fire in him, and could still knock
one of out of the park if given better material. And it also shows that Olga Kurylenko is not
only capable of elevating potentially-mediocre material - but is also deserving
of being recognized as one of the best actresses to have emerged from the Bond
Franchise and grace other films. Go,
Olga...
