The November Man - Movie Review

                

            Ever since Dr. No (1962), the very first bond film, happened, the genre of crime thriller has been established by spy movies like James Bond films. Now there are other establishing characters, such as Jason Bourne, in the film The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and The Bourne Legacy (2012). Now we have another spy crime-action-thriller film that is based on a novel.

            In The November Man, a now five-year retired spy is given a small mission by his old boss, and this mission concerns someone who used to be very close to him. From there,things go wrong, a mystery arises, and he is turned against the agency he has been working for as they don’t believe someone he does. The agency is hunting him down, and he has to become what he was to get the right thing done, while also hiding from the agency and trying to make good with a younger spy from this agency (Luke Bracey), who he was not on good terms with when he left.

            Pierce Brosnan plays this protagonist. Since he played James Bond in multiple films before, he definitely has some experience with spy action-thrillers like this, and it is obvious that he is trying to give his character more depth, to make the movie better. And he succeeds on some parts. Pierce Brosnan is good in this movie, but does he compensate for the plethora of flaws in the script? No, it’s the direction that makes the film watchable. With the use of many long shots, the director is able to make intense moments out of mediocre dialogue and give a large amount of energy to the action sequences. All of the action scenes are directed very well, as most of the film is. Each scene was done on Coen brothers-level quality, but I liked the director’s choice of shots and it did feel like the film was done well. Sometimes the action sequences did not allow me to suspend disbelief on their plausibility, but other than that I have zero complaints with the direction.

            This film has many flaws regarding the script. The plot of the movie is extremely formulaic. It’s very derivative of other spy films, and many beats of the plot were easy to see coming. There are many predictable twists and turns in the film. As well as the formulaic plot, we also have clichéd characters. The main character is just like the main character in many spy films. Some other, lesser, characters are also very clichéd. There are also a good mix of plot holes and some inconsistencies in the film. While I will say that there was not a huge amount, there are definitely some, and they were not plausible and made no sense. They took me out of the movie. And we also have many plot conveniences to make it much easier for the writers to get through writing the plot of the movie. In many of the scenes, the way of which it turns out has to do with a convenience are multiple conveniences. Those weighed down the script even more. And, of course, we do have scenes of ridiculous dialogue. Some of the scenes of dialogue were fine, but some were definitely not. Some of the dialogue was ridiculous, some tedious, some underwhelming, and some simply bad. And in the scenes where the dialogue was fine, it still wasn’t good. None of the dialogue was good. It was either mediocre or bad.

            The other performances, such as those of Luke Bracey and Olga Kurylenko, were functional for their clichéd characters. The only true good performance was the lead performance given by Pierce Brosnan. It was not the actors here who sold the film to the audience. There are several elements of this film that are simply mediocre and not good or bad. The cinematography wasn’t good. The score wasn’t bad. However, the script is bad, but the direction is very good.

            If it was not for the director, it probably wouldn’t have been as easy to get through the film. But because of Roger Donaldson’s precision during the action sequences and focus on character in the dialogue scenes, I did enjoy this film, still having in mind all of its flaws. I didn’t let the flaws in the script bug me during the film, so I admired Pierce Brosnan’s performance and Roger Donaldson’s direction then. I worried about all of the flaws in the overall bad script later. The film didn’t turn out to be good, but it wasn’t bad either. It was a mediocre movie.