Tag Archives: Spy

Citadel: The Human Enigma – TV Review

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TL;DR – This opening gives you the explosive action and compelling characters you need, but the jury might still be out about the narrative.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this series.

A body floats in the water as flames lap above.

Citadel Review –

There have been many, and I mean many, pretenders trying to take the James Bond throne. Some have come close, and some have stepped into the world but with their own take and vibe. Yet some still go straight for the juggler and try to unset the monolith. I was surprised to see the next contender come from the studio that just bought a sizable chunk of the James Bond franchise, but I am interested to see where they go with it.

So to set the scene, a train blasts through the countryside in the Italian Alps. When a mysterious lady Nadia (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), enamoured in a stunning red dress, walks into the viewing cart. But she is not there for the breathtaking views of mountain lakes. She is here for the Russian Gregor (Lev Gorn) with the enriched uranium in his bag about to sell to the highest bidder. It was all going well when Mason (Richard Madden) sat beside her. They were a team, but they are no longer a team. However, they are Citadel agents, and professionals, so they can get the job done. But all is not as it seems because uranium is not in the bag. It is a message, a warning, a declaration, and an extermination. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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The Diplomat: Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – This is a delightfully amusing show for one delving into such topical stories. Like if The West Wing met Utopia by way of The Crown.   

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this series

A British funeral

The Diplomat Review –

In a former life, I got very much down the rabbit hole of the world of international affairs. While that is now deep in the past, it is nice to dip your toes back into what could have been from time to time. I thought I would do this when I saw a new show about being the new Ambassador from the USA to the UK. I am not quite sure what I was expecting when I sat down to watch, but I am not sure that a show that is equal parts drama and farce was one of them.

So to set the scene, after years of being the deputy chief of Mission for her husband Hal (Rufus Sewell), Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) is getting ready to step up and be the next Ambassador to Afghanistan. However, there was no ambassador in London, which was a problem when an external actor attacked the Aircraft carrier HMS Courageous. So without warning, Kate is dropped into the thick of it as most people see this as an Iranian attack to avenge the Americans for taking an oil tanker earlier in the month. However, while Kate is trying to find her feet, what she is not aware of, but what White House Chief of Staff Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah) has given Stuart Heyford (Ato Essandoh), Deputy Chief of Mission, has given the heads up about is that Kate is on a shortlist to replace the Vice President who is about to get turfed in a scandal. Kate would be good for the job if not for the fact that her marriage is about to implode. Now from here, we will be looking at the series as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Ghosted – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While there is potential in the idea we have here, nothing seems to stick, becoming quite frustrating in places.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Apple TV+ service that viewed this film.

Chris Evans with a shocked look on his face.

Ghosted Review –

When I come into a film, I try to avoid bringing outside baggage, namely any other opinions, with me before I start watching. My own experiences and thoughts, you can’t help them, but with others, that is something you can work on. However, every now and again, there comes a film that you simply cannot avoid the conversation because it permeates everywhere. Today we look at just such a film, and unfortunately for Ghosted, they did not help themselves with some of the most baffling promotion I have seen in a while.  

So to set the scene, on the outskirts of Washington DC, Sadie (Ana de Armas) decided to ditch her therapy session and drive up to the mountains. In a small town, she comes across a farmers market where Cole (Chris Evans) is working, and it is love at first snark. When Cole would not sell Sadie a plant because she would probably kill it, they ended up having some fun together, a night together, and a big move. Followed by Sadie 100% ghosting her [insert title of film reference here]. But when Cole discovers Sadie is in London, he decides not to do the weird stalker thing, but the grand romantic gesture thing, travelling 5000 miles to say hello to the woman he has seen once, and he knows where they are because he accidentally put a tracker on her. But instead of that romantic moment, he is captured, knocked out by assailants, and then subjected to a little light torture.  

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The Night Agent: Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – While not groundbreaking, what we get is a solid spy thriller with a dash of West Wing to boot.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this show.  

The Capital Building

The Night Agent Review –

I am always looking for a new spy series to dabble in after last year’s delightful The Recruit. When I heard rumblings that The Night Agent was one to give a watch. So, I had some time off from work and thought I would give it a watch, then bamm, that first scene happened, and then wait, where did all those episodes go?

So to set the scene, Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) is an FBI agent who was going about their day when they noticed that a gentleman (Andre Anthony) had just left their bag on the DC Metro. Opening it, he found there was a bomb and was able to evacuate the train before it exploded. A year later, Chief of Staff Diane Farr (Hong Chau) has given him a job in The White House, working the late shift as a Night Action operator. Most nights, all that entails is him looking over briefs and giving advice. But one night, the phone rings because Rose Larkin’s (Luciane Buchanan) family has been attacked, and she has been given this one lifeline for help. Now from here, we will be looking at the series as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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True Lies (1994) – Exploring the Past

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TL;DR – While some parts of this have aged as well as blue cheese in the sun, you can’t help but feel the pull and allure of a story swinging for the fences at every opportunity. 

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this film

True Lies Review –

When getting ready for my 2022 best of lists, I discovered that I had revied 99 films this year. Which made me wonder, what could be the lucky number 100? Just as I pondered that, True Lies finally made its way onto streaming. I have not seen this in years, but while I loved it when I was younger, the years are rarely kind to films like this. But given the year that James Cameron has had with Avatar, it was all the better time to jump back to one of his classics.  

So to set the scene, an exclusive party is taking part on a snowy cold night at Lake Chapeau, Switzerland, at a heavily guarded chalet. But not all the guests are coming in the front door. Some are cutting through the gates to the lake under the ice. Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) works for a secret US counterterrorism unit called Omega Sector and is investigating the billionaire art dealer Jamal Khaled (Marshall Manesh) as a possible front for laundering money to Islamic Terrorists. But no one outside of the agency and his team, Albert “Gib” Gibson (Tom Arnold) and Faisil (Grant Heslov), not even Harry’s wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and daughter Dana (Eliza Dushku), knows what he does. One tango later, Harry must make a less-than-quiet exit from the party. But while his work and home life are separate entities, they are about to come crashing together.   

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The Recruit – Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – This is a delightfully fun romp through the world of espionage with a leading man finding himself in all the wrong places at all the right times.  

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this series.

Hiding behind your computer monitors.

The Recruit Review –

I have to say that when I first heard about The Recruit, I was kind of a bit tired of the overall spy genre. Add to that, it was led by Noah Centineo, who I had never seen as a leading man before, and the constraints of the end of the year. Well, I was happy to give this a pass. But something niggled in the back of my head, and part of me had to see what was going on here and look. I am the first to admit I was wrong.

So to set the scene, Owen Hendricks (Noah Centineo) is a brand new lawyer for the general counsel’s office of the CIA. Most jobs make you feel like you are in over your head when you start. The CIA takes that to a whole new level when all of your colleagues are also trying to sabotage you. To prove himself and because people wanted him to fail, he takes on the grey mail. These are letters from people threatening the CIA. 99% of them are not threats, but in his first week, Owen has to find the one credible letter. Max Meladze (Laura Haddock) is locked in a Phoenix prison for caving a guy’s head in with a tyre wrench. But she also knows code word clearance intelligence and might just be able to destroy all the CIA’s operations in Belarus and Russia. Owen is happy to find the threat but less comfortable when he is tasked by his boss Walter Nyland (Vondie Curtis-Hall), to take care of it, and then quite put off when that leads to him getting his fingernail ripped off in a ruin in Yemen. Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.   

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Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) – Exploring the Past

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TL;DR – While it works as a time capsule of the 90s, so much of this film was left back 30 years ago  

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There are mid-credit scenes

Disclosure – I paid for the Binge service that viewed this film

A henchmen and the Steam roller.

Austin Powers Review –

When you have had a bad week, one reflex you do is go back to old films from your youth. The only issue is that the movies of your youth might often not have the narrative legs you once thought they did, or you are just looking at them with new eyes. This week, the film in this situation is the James Bond spoofing Austin Powers.

So to set the scene, in 1967, somewhere outside of Las Vegas, Dr Evil (Mike Myers) is holding court with his minions, frustrated that none of them has been able to kill the famous British agent Austin Danger Powers (Mike Myers). Meanwhile, in London, after a significant musical number during the credits, Mrs Kensington (Mimi Rogers) lets Austin know that Dr Evil has set a trap for him at the Electric Psychedelic Pussycat Swingers Club. Not wanting to be left out, Austin goes to the club, but Dr Evil is about to escape and has himself cryogenically frozen. In 1997, NORAD is looking at their scopes, and suddenly an object appears, and they discover that Dr Evil has returned, and it is time for the world to need Austin Powers again.   

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The Gray Man – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A perfectly serviceable if messy action film but one that struggles to find an identity.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

A plane about to crash.

The Gray Man Review –

You can feel that Netflix is a company going through an identity issue. No longer is it just ‘the place where you go for binging streaming content’ because others are doing it just as well, and now even the concept of binging has lost its value. So what we are getting are things being cancelled left, right and centre, but then $200 million being dropped on big-name films. I am not sure how this will go for the company, but we are getting to see the results of this tonight with The Gray Man.   

So to set the scene, we opened in 2003 in a state prison in Florida, where Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton) of the CIA is here to recruit Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling). He is looking for people to add to his black-ops team, whose central role is assassinations in the ‘grey’. Eighteen years later, in Bangkok, Court is now Sierra Six and is one of the CIA’s best assists in the field, where he takes an op from Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas). It is a time-sensitive mission to take out Dining Car (Callan Mulvey), which is why they are using Six. But when he won’t risk the collateral of children, things start spiralling out of control, and then Six discovers that the mark Dining Car is Sierra Four and that his boss Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page), might not be on the up and up.

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The 355 – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While this is a good concept, unfortunately, production and narrative issues feel like an anchor dragging the film back at every moment.    

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

The cast walk into an auction in fancy dress.

The 355 Review –

One of the more frustrating things to see is when you have a narrative with an exciting hook that just plods along with a generic presentation. Today we are unfortunately looking at a film that does just that, and given what they were trying, it feels like a real missed opportunity.

So to set the scene, 150 Miles south of Bogota, Colombia, there appears to be a drug deal going on, but it is much worse. They are there to make a trade for a back door key into any of the world’s secure communications. At this point, a gunfight explodes out between the two cartels and the Colombian military and the key is lost in the melee until it is picked up by the last man standing (Édgar Ramírez). The last man standing is an operative for the CIA and immediately goes into hiding in Paris. It is up to CIA agents Mason “Mace” Browne (Jessica Chastain) and Nick Fowler (Sebastian Stan) to secure it, which is where things start going wrong.

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All the Old Knives – Movie Review

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TL;DR –  While it might not stick the landing, it did engage me right up to that point

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime subscription that viewed this episode.

All the Old Knives. Image Credit: Amazon Studios.

All the Old Knives Review –

Some films spark your interest from the cast list alone. One of those combinations is Chris Pine, Thandiwe Newton, Laurence Fishburne, and Jonathan Pryce, all working together in a film. Add a layer of spies, subterfuge, regrets, and loves lost, and you have the groundwork for something interesting or at least something that speaks to me.  

So to set the scene, we opened in Vienna, where terrorists hijacked a Turkish Airlines plane, Flight 127. At the CIA-Vienna outpost, all the team look in horror as the carnage unfolds. 8-years later, one of the terrorists involved was captured in Afghanistan, who let it be known that the terrorists had help from inside the CIA-Vienna station. Vick Wallinger (Laurence Fishburne) tasks Henry Pelham (Chris Pine) to investigate his former team, the second in command Bill Compton (Jonathan Pryce), his old love Celia Harrison (Thandiwe Newton), and the whole team. They need to find out if there was a mole in the department and if it caused the deaths of all those people.

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