November Man (3/10): As bad as the title suggests it is!

"Know what we used to call you Peter? The November Man. Cause after you passed through, nothing lived."

Experiencing November Man felt like simply passing through and not feeling anything. I definitely didn’t get any sense of enjoyment from Roger Donaldons’s (Species, The Bank Job, The Recruit) latest film. The only thing it has going for it is getting to see Pierce Brosnan as a spy agent once again, although Peter Devereaux is a somewhat more serious character than James Bond was. It tries to portray him as a much darker character, but I didn’t feel that way about him either. For a film that is trying to separate itself from the classic spy action thrillers it ends up relying on the same genre cliches and familiar plot twists. From the very opening scene of November Man I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy this. I didn’t like how these characters were introduced or how the action scenes took place. It was a completely dull experience for me.

November Man was adapted from one of Bill Granger’s spy novels centering on the anti-hero, Peter Devereaux. It is based on his 7th novel, “There Are No Spies,” which unfortunately I have never had the privilege of reading so I can’t say how faithful this adaptation is. What I can base my review on however, is on how poorly written the characters are for this film. They try to portray Devereaux as a darker character, but at the same time they want to make us like him and understand him. I would say he is your typical spy who has been betrayed and is trying to discover the truth along the way. There is one scene where he cuts an innocent girl’s femoral artery which felt out of place considering the film never tries to be a character study and focuses mostly on the action scenes. If the rest of the film focused on this gray side of his, I would have no problem in accepting it, but it mostly portrays him as a good spy who is trying to protect innocent lives. That scene sort of contradicts everything he has been portrayed as, especially in the opening scene. For a dark film they never go all the way to portray Brosnan as an anti-hero and they spend most of the time jumping from one familiar action scene to another. It simply doesn’t stand out as neither an original serious spy thriller nor an entertaining light hearted one. Donaldson never figured out how to balance this film correctly and adapt it to the source material.

November Man is an average spy thriller that relies heavily on Pierce Brosnan’s charismatic performance. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t enough to save the familiar script or the poorly executed action scenes. The secondary characters were uninteresting and they failed to engage me, while the film relies on one too many familiar twists. Luke Bracey plays the young CIA agent who is being trained by Peter, but after a series of unfortunate events unfold that puts them face to face against each other. Bracey’s character was poorly written and I didn’t enjoy his performance either. The film centers on these two characters as they are forced to face each other, but Bracey’s character is so uninteresting I did’t really care for it. Olga Kurylenko is a beautiful actress, but her performance here kind of reminded me of some of her other bad films such as Max Payne or Hitman. The sub-plot involving the Russian female assassin was laughable and pointless as the entire film was. 

My Review: Love is All You Need (6/10)

¨I really don´t understand why anybody would work for you when you are so awful.¨

I really don’t understand why Academy Award winner, Susanne Bier, chose a character so unlikeable to play the lead romantic role in this film. Pierce Brosnan plays this really awful and hateful lead character that is upset at the world, but ends up falling in love with a recovering Cancer patient played by Trine Dyrholm. The two seem like complete opposites, but end up falling for each other after the film magically transforms this unlikeable character into a somewhat sentimental one. I really hated the first half of this film, but once Brosnan´s character became more human the film really picks up and has a strong and emotional second half. The second part is what makes this film worth the while and where Susanne Bier´s magic reappears. This is perhaps her weakest effort after having directed Brothers and In a Better World, two films which I really enjoyed. The Danish director combines some elements from her homeland as well as a touch of British and Italian, but the real problem with this romantic comedy has to do with the pacing of the film. The screenplay was written by Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen who had also worked with her in her previous productions. Love is All You Need doesn’t really live up to their prior work, but it still is a decent comedy that works better in the second half. The Danish title translates to The Bald Hairdresser, but the English title works a lot better. This was a bit of a disappointment for me despite feeling a connection towards the end, but I expect much more from Bier´s upcoming film, Serena, staring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.

Ida (Trine Dyrholm) is a hairdresser who has lost her hair after battling with cancer, and at the same time has found out her husband (Kim Bodnia) is having an affair with his accountant. She finds some comfort in her daughter, Astrid (Molly Blixt Egelind), who is getting married with Patrick (Sebastian Jessen) as she travels to Italy for the wedding reception. At the reception she meets Philip (Pierce Brosnan), a successful widowed businessman who is angry at life. Philip is Patrick´s father and he falls in love with Ida´s charm and goodness. She reminds him a lot of his wife and the two spend a lot of time together while their children are getting ready for the wedding. At the same time Astrid feels like Patrick is having second thoughts about the marriage after feeling him very distant the last few days. Conflicts arise at the beautiful and romantic Italian seaside villa as we get closer and closer to the ceremony.

Susanne Bier has made some great dramatic films, but here she falls a little short with this romantic comedy. It has its touching and emotional moments, but the pacing of the film really doesn’t help. She does manage to deal with the complexities of life and love, but in doing so she does make this movie a little more complex than it should be for a romantic comedy. Trine Dyrholm is a delight on screen and she gets much more screen time here than in A Better World. Pierce Brosnan does what he can with his character, but he is so unlikeable at the beginning of the film that it is really hard to cheer for him. It´s hard not to fall in love with the beautiful Italian cinematography and it really adds to the romantic atmosphere. Kim Bodnia, playing the unfaithful husband also adds to the comedy. The young couple has very little chemistry with each other, but we see why during the second half of the film. Despite all my complaints it’s hard not to leave with a smile by the time the credits begin rolling. If you can get through the painful first half of the film you might actually enjoy this film.

    

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My Review: The Ghost Writer (9/10)

¨Oh yes, the wall of ego. We all have one, our equivalent of the dentist's fish tank. ¨

The Ghost Writer is an excellent thriller that works mainly because Roman Polanski is at the helm of the project. I don`t think this story would have been so gripping or suspenseful if it was put in any other director`s hands, but Polanski has such a fatalistic view of the world that he knows how to create these dark and tense situations and combines them with the right amount of black humor and paranoia. The performance from the cast was also an important ingredient to the success of this film with Ewan McGregor giving a terrific performance, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams, and Tom Wilkinson also delivering in the supporting roles. The similarities between Brosnan`s character with real life British former prime minister, Tony Blair, can`t be ignored, even more so considering that Polanski`s adapted screenplay was based on Robert Harris`s (a former BBC reporter and political columnist) book The Ghost, which was written shortly after Blair resigned from office. This is Polanski`s first film in 5 years as a director, and only his second one since 2002 when he won the Oscar for The Pianist.  Polanski proves once again why he ranks amongst the best directors in the world showing he is a true master in the craft, creating suspense from the very opening scene, maintaining our full attention throughout the film, and creating several unexpected twists.

The movie opens with a dark scene as a ferry is disembarking on a cold night and one car is left behind with the owner of the vehicle nowhere to be found. The next morning a body is found washed up in the beach and it happens to be that of a ghostwriter who was writing the memoirs for the British former Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). It seemed to be an apparent suicide or accident since there was a high amount of alcohol level in his blood, and the memoir didn`t seem to be going very well. A new ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) is hired to try to finish the memoir even though he knows nothing of politics, but the paycheck seems worth it. He travels to the United States where Adam is located for a month and begins interviewing him in order to try to bring some heart to the memoir which according to him was ¨the cure for insomnia, ¨ and there was a lot of work to be done.  A lot of suspicious events begin to lead the ghost to do more researching. First of all there is the over protectiveness of the original memoir which can never leave the room and is always locked away in a cabin by Lang`s assistant Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall), then there is the issue that Lang is being accused of crime wars by a former British minister, and Lang`s wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) is jealous of her husband`s relationship with Amelia. The ghost begins to investigate some of his predecessor`s findings and after a few interviews with some locals discovers that his death might not have been accidental after all. As the ghost gets deeper in his investigation, his life begins to be threatened.

The film is very well crafted by Polanski who does a great job at creating the right mood for a suspenseful political thriller such as this one. I think that any other director could have turned this film into ¨the cure for insomnia, ¨ but Polanski is a master at what he does and was able to combine suspense, thrills, and twists into this film converting it into a successful movie. Ewan McGregor`s character is probably the key to the entire movie as his investigation of the case serves to inform us about what is going on. We are discovering new things about Lang`s life along with him, and we feel completely lost alongside him wondering what is going to happen next.  We can identify and feel the paranoia with him as more and more mysteries become unraveled and his life begins to be threatened. Another key element is Tom Wilkinson`s small role in this film as Paul Emmett, a Harvard graduate that seems to play an important role in Lang`s life although he denies it. Wilkinson is such a great actor and he always adds so much with his performances. He isn`t on screen very much, but those few minutes are memorable nonetheless. McGregor isn`t left behind and he does a great job in the lead role playing one of his best roles in recent memory, as does Pierce Brosnan. Overall this is a great movie and I highly recommend this as one of the year`s best thrillers.

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