‘The Courier’, a true life-based espionage thriller set in the early 1960s – and staged to appeal to audiences old enough to live through it – stubbornly resists engaging or influencing us until it is almost over. But by that time, you might have fallen asleep.
Ideally, this should not happen if you look at two rising guys – one British, one Russian – perhaps a nuclear apocalypse could appear narrow. But director Dominic Cooke (whose debut in 2018, “On Chesil Beach” grippingly conveyed the tragedy of broken intimacy) can either not generate tension, or simply choose not to do so. The Cuban rocket crisis could threaten in the background, but we hardly feel the threat because Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch), an inconspicuous English salesman, is appointed as an intermediary between MI6 (in the form of a suave Angus Wright) and a Soviet officer named Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze)).
With its rooms with wood panels and plum cigarette smoke, ‘The Courier’ is the espionage theater at its finest. Disappointing is that no one cuts karate or turns fountain pens into small daggers. (Instead, they eat lunch and go to the ballet.) We are told that Wynne should take an accident course in crafts before accepting Soviet secrets, but Tom O’Connor’s tight script is active against this excitement. We need an assembly!
Although Jessie Buckley, as Wynne’s suspicious wife, and Rachel Brosnahan, as an amusingly sensational CIA worker, add a welcome shock of female energy, “The Courier” is essentially the story of an extraordinary male friendship. The men’s mutual compassion is too late to save the picture, but is no less poignant for it.
The courier
Rated PG-13 for a bit of violence and a snap-and-you-miss-it-bedroom scene. Duration: 1 hour 51 minutes. In theaters. Before watching movies in theaters, consult the guidelines set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.