This week, instead of having a major US blockbuster movie released, we got this film that was a 2019 production and its poster was hanging on few studios for few months. Anyway since there was no other movie that could be chosen, I decided to watch this one, and as usual, due to uncertainty of its quality, I saw it by myself. Well let's get on with it now.
Brief Story Line
Thomas (Martin Freeman - Black Panther, The Hobbit trilogy etc) was the former handler for Israel's intelligence agency Mossad who previously handled a spy named Rachel (Diane Kruger - Troy, National Treasure etc). Rachel was given the assignment in Iran where she had to make contact with a businessman named Farhad (Cas Anvar - The Expanse TV series etc).
However, due to some reasons, she went rogue and alerted her former employer to find out what her intentions were when she suddenly made contact with Thomas.
End of Brief Story Line
The first few minutes of this movie was actually pretty intriguing. From the moment Thomas got the phone call, the mystery was quite interesting for me to find out. It was also surprising to see Martin Freeman with his rather thick beard that made me almost did not recognize him at first. However, as the movie progressed, I realize that it was not going at the speed I would have liked. The pace was slow and there was no intensity that we would have experienced in a thriller movie.
The focus on Rachel was OK, after all the story was about her anyway. But it made it harder for me to enjoy when rather than showing the suspense thrill of being a spy, it focused a lot more on her personal moral dilemma. At least her performance was quite convincing. Yes, there was a bit of spy action once or twice but the only one that was worth it was the part towards the end (during a dangerous op). However, I felt it was ruined by the ending which to me was not satisfying at all. I would rather have it any other way than this movie's ending.
For a film with almost 2 hours duration, it did not have enough suspense, intensity and action as a spy thriller. In fact, I thought this one should be categorized as drama rather than thriller. But I did quite enjoy the flashback story telling that revealed little by little what actually happened, even though I could have guessed it from the moment we were shown the third character Farhad (I thought he was played nicely by Cas Anwar, which made me quite interested in watching tdhat sci-fi series The Expanse where he was part of the main cast). Btw, the movie's opening credit mentioned that it was based on the novel titled The English Teacher written by Yiftach Reicher-Atir whom I read in the internet was a former intelligent officer. Ooh there was no mid or post end credit scenes at all.
Overall, this was a movie that I thought was not worth to see in the theater. I felt it was more like a TV movie and I think it would have been more suitable seen via online streaming/cable TV. What really surprised me though, was the film's ratings was not that bad. For me, this one was definitely not memorable at all. So if you are thinking of seeing this in the theater due to no new movie and because the theaters would be closed for 2 weeks to avoid covid-19 spread, better think twice and stay at home instead.
Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
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