The Courier

Have I mentioned before that Hollywood has produced a plethora of espionage films? Well, they have and whether or not it has been for the reason of profit, we have been the victors of them. There have been many intriguing spy flicks that have dawned our movie screens. So, when a spy film, based on a true incident, came along titled "The Courier", I couldn't pass it up.

In this true-life Cold War spy thriller, unassuming British businessman Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) becomes entangled in one of the greatest international conflicts in history. Because of Wynne not having any ties to either government so as to blend in, he is recruited by MI6 agent Dickie Franks (Angus Wright) and a CIA operative Emily Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan), and then Wynne forms a covert partnership with Soviet officer Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), and both men risk everything in a danger-fraught race against time to provide the intelligence needed to prevent nuclear confrontation and end the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962.

Others to round out the cast are Jessie Buckley as Sheila Wynne, Greville's wife, Anton Lesser as Bertrand, Keir Hills as Andrew Wynne, Greville and Sheila's son, Vladimir Chuprikov as Nikita Khrushchev, James Schofield as Cox and Fred Haig as Lee.

This was intensely directed by Dominic Cooke ("National Theatre Live: The Comedy pf Errors" '12, "On Chesil Beach" '17, "National Theatre Live: Follies" '17) plus TV. Even though this filmmaker hasn't a great deal of experience, his ability to extract the emotions from his actors was amazing. Surely Cumberbatch is a consummate actor, but it still takes talented directing to make an audience feel right along with the characters these actors are portraying, and the helming by Cooke absolutely helped. It was written with intrigue and suspense by Tom O'Connor ("Fire with Fire" '12, "The Hitman's Bodyguard" '17). This film really took me back considering I was 10 years old at the time this crisis took place, and was a very scary era, and from what I've learned since is that we weren't days from WWIII, but merely moments from it, which makes this story so riveting. Like with the directing, this writer isn't an extremely experienced one, but this well thought out storyline was cohesive, riveting, tight and consistent in its storytelling. I was seating on the edge of my theater seat all the while wondering what was going to happen next. To capture ones' audience means the writing is spot on. If you liked his writing, his "The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard" is in post production. And, as usual, Cumberbatch gave a riveted role as Wynne, but even the supporting cast was incredible as well. 

If you're a spy genre junkie, you'll love this. But even if you're not, the writing and directing will intrigue, especially if you're a history buff. It movie points out so clearly how things can go awry in a matter of moments--something our society should take note about. This was originally scheduled to be released on 1-24-2020, but because of the pandemic, it was re-released on 3-19-21. It just made it to my neighborhood theater last week. 

Out of 4 Stars: 4                                              Rated: PG-13                                             112mins.