Review of The November Man (2014) by Adlai N — 31 May 2015

Not one to be left out of the geriatric action genre, Pierce Brosnan steps into a role that he knows all too well. With the summer winding down, he gives the formula for an easy, end of the road capper in his new spy thriller. But it's too much of what we've seen before and much of the characters and story is mainly dull. Brosnan's performance at least makes it worth it.

Peter Devereaux (Pierce Brosnan) is a highly trained CIA agent who has taken on a protégé, David Mason (Luke Bracey) who is just as good as he is. But tragedy strikes on a mission in Montenegro where Bracey disobeys Devereaux orders. Five years have passed with Devereaux now retired and working a café in Switzerland. But an old friend and former boss John Hanley (Bill Smitrovich), offers him a job to get evidence that will connect a Russian Presidential candidate and former Russian army general Arkady Fedorov (Lazar Ristovski) to war crimes. Along the way he meets a social worker, Alice Fournier (Olga Kurylenko) who knows of a witness to Federov's crimes. They both eventually become the target of his former protégé Mason as well as the CIA and a Russian assassin Alexa (Amila Terzimehic) who want the evidence for themselves and must quickly uncover a vast government conspiracy before they're both dead.

It's as paint by numbers as you can get where it seemingly takes bits and pieces of previous spy thrillers, then blended into one generic puree. That's not to say that it's completely devoid of anything memorable. But it by no means a companion piece to the far superior Jason Bourne films. It doesn't go for the lofty intelligent aspirations that you would expect from a highly praised novel series. The tone feels continuously restrained like its holding back, leaving you expecting so much more.

Thankfully Brosnan revels in his role as aged badass superspy, wielding his pistol with glee, looking like the Bond of old. He never seems to lose his suave demeanor or ability to command a screen with is ultra-cool presence. Unsurprisingly, the film gets pretty boring when he's not on screen but thankfully the story isn't a complete dud to make it a little exciting. He can still go like much of his aged action brethren that were featured in The Expendables 3 or the countless Liam Neeson films. If the rumors are in fact true, I would love to see him in Expendables 4.

Bracey was rather dull and boring by comparison who didn't offer much character development, going through the motions as a stereotypical hot shot, chip on the shoulder CIA agent. As the movie went on, it was painfully obvious that he is clearly an amateur going up against a veteran in every sense of the word, not only on screen in character but off-screen as actors and presence. You could have put any 20 something year old good looking white guy in this role and it wouldn't have made any difference what so ever. It was hard to care for him or his mission, making you like Brosnan even more.

Smitrovich clearly had some fun as Hanley the former boss to Devereaux, delivering some ridiculous lines with confidence and chewing some scenery. While not an amazing performance, it was able to offer up a somewhat interesting character. It was different for Ristovski who wasn't as menacing and deadly as his resume would indicate. He was just playing a standard evil Russian who didn't stray away at all to make it different. The story didn't feel as thrilling since he was perceived so weakly for much of the movie. Kurylenko was ok for what it was but felt bland for most of the movie. Eventually she showed some semblance of character but not enough to make one remember her performance.

There are some twists as one would expect in a movie like this. But one in particular felt way too cliché as I predicted it nearly half an hour before it was revealed. When it comes, you shouldn't feel all that surprised since it's been done before in far better films. The set up was pretty lazy and was like someone holding your hand. The other one was a little more surprising but not that much. I feel like I should have seen it coming but when something this ordinary comes along, it's hard sometimes to see the writing on the wall.

One of the more bizarre and perplexing scenes was Brosnan acting a little out of character, behaving like a dastardly villain. It doesn't goes up well against his more heroic acts and makes the movie even more manic in story and character. There doesn't seem to be a succinct reason other than to stick it to another person in a cold and callous manner as possible. But it shows how great a villain he can be with the right character. It would be awesome if he was the main bad guy in The Expendables 4. Another was the useless romance between Mason and his neighbor Sarah (Eliza Taylor). It's so minuscule and dumb that you wonder why it's even there at all. It was way too forced where they immediately have sex after one date, than never show her or have Mason mention her again.

It's a shame that director Roger Donaldson has directed another dud in a career full of them, considering he has directed No Way Out, Thirteen Days and The Bank Job. He can be very effective with political thrillers and not relying on tired clichés or boring characters. The Bank Job came out only six years ago and is a vastly underrated British crime drama with a great performance from Jason Statham. There is no reason why he couldn't have done the same thing here, instead making something lazy and put together. On the bright side, this would be a movie I would put on during a lazy afternoon and chill, so it's got that going for it. The action sequences were good enough, and had plenty of violence to hold many an action junkie over. But it's still basic run of the mill stuff here. None of it will blow you away and is fairly easy to digest.

The November Man is a serviceable spy thriller, but only barely. It's not great but not really awful which isn't really much of a compliment. It has its moments but none that will stand out by the end of the year. The character development is nearly nonexistent except for the always cool Pierce Brosnan. The standard plot of betrayals, government conspiracies and an old villain in Russia makes it much like nearly every other B-movie spy film ever made. But not presented in a way where it's able to offer up something different. Two war crimes out of five.