Pierce Brosnan became an action icon when he portrayed the most iconic secret agent, James Bond. Throughout his four films with the franchise, he appeared in some of the most popular films of the recent era, including Goldeneye. Lately, Brosnan has engaged in action flicks as an experienced agent who would leave his desire for danger to dedicate himself to the family. In this sense, The November Man, released in 2014, follows this mote. Director Ronald Donaldson, who some may know as the father of Sundance newcomer director India Donaldson, of Good One acclaim, brings a modern 21st-century approach to the Cold War thrillers from the 1970s and 1980s.
Based on Bill Granger’s novel, There Are No Spies, The November Man tackles a former expert agent from the CIA, Peter Devereaux (Pierce Brosnan). Devereaux is the mentor and teacher of David Mason (Luke Bracey), a womanizer agent with a special calling for killing. After a failed mission in Montenegro in 2008, they go on different paths. They suddenly cross paths again when a former lover in Peter’s life, Natalia (Mediha Musliović), steals crucial proof of the misdoings of the leading candidate for the Russian presidency, Arkady Fedorov (Lazar Ristovski). Suddenly, there are conspiracy threads regarding the personal interests of the agents, the CIA’s leader in Serbia, John Hanley (Bill Smitrovich), and Federov. In the meantime, it becomes a race of who gets to Mira Filipova (Nina Mrda), a woman who is living proof of the Russian candidate abuses in the second Chechynian war.
Ronald Donaldson became popular in the 1980s and 1990s for his popular and accessible action films, such as Cocktail and Dante’s Peak, which featured Brosnan as the leading star. One of the foundations of the director-actor relationship is how Donaldson chooses camera angles and framings that benefit Brosnan’s late athleticism. His action coordination focuses on the impact of what is happening on the screen. It uses some engaging sequences, such as a beer keg used as a weapon to tackle one of the enemies. These clever employments of the set objects provide a kinetic energy that symbolizes the heights of the film. However, the script adaptation by Michael Flinch and Karl Gajdusek lacks the emotional threads to organize the action and its meanings better.
The story’s virtues are best exemplified by discussing the personal implications that the secret agent lives bring to those individuals. For example, there is a narrative thread of Peter and Natalia’s hidden reality, where he has a café in Switzerland and a daughter, Lucy (Tara Jevrosimović). It works in the story context because it exemplifies Peter’s hypocrisies, who taught Mason not to have personal attachments to anyone. However, when Alice (Olga Kurylenko) enters the political game, the narrative disorganization becomes even more evident. Firstly, she is a supporting pawn on the chessboard. Nevertheless, there is an arc that expands her prominence, and it comes with a plot twist easily telegraphed, diminishing the impact.
Similar to the modern action thrillers of the 2010s decade, such as 2012’s Jack Reacher and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The November Man relies on a political context that emulates the last century tropes. The Donaldson thriller becomes an old-fashioned derivative espionage flick. It provides a sometimes efficacious film, but the directing feels misplaced in increasing the vigor and consequences of the action pieces. There is a circular point to the events focused on the action, and it forgets the political thread that motivates all those characters. It falls into a generic thriller territory and does not differentiate it from the other efforts from the same genre.
Brosnan is still a charming lead, as he proved plenty of time throughout his career. However, the cliché tropes harm the development of the female characters, such as Lucy, Mira, and Alice. They are unidimensional people who serve as significations for the male characters and their ambitions. It is a shame that Mira is only an operatical tool in the puzzle, and Lucy appears at a convenient moment at the conclusion of this story. In this sense, Peter is the singular character with treatment and some background contextualization.
The November Man is a mediocre effort that follows the old-fashioned formation of the Cold War thrillers involving American agents and the Balkans. It focuses solely on Pierce Brosnans’ leading presence, while the supporting cast has poor development. Besides some entertaining action pieces, it is a repetitive and generic political flick.
The November Man is streaming for free on Vizio’s WatchFree+ in January.
Learn more about how to stream it at the Vizio website.
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