All the Old Knives - Intelligently Done Spy Thriller Movie

This movie was released on Prime Video last Friday but due to various options available then, I opted to see it only on Saturday night. It has an intriguing premise that made me interested. Plus I was hoping to see another Chris Pine movie which would satisfy me as the other one I saw earlier that day failed to impress me. OK, lets get to it.

Brief Story Line

A CIA Agent named Henry Pelham (Chris Pine - The Contractor, Star Trek Beyond etc) was instructed by his boss Vick Wallinger (Laurence Fishburne - The Ice Road, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice etc) to investigate in the possible leak from Vienna Station related to the hijacking of a commercial plane 8 years before.

Henry later interviewed retired agent Celia Harrison (Thandiwe Newton - Reminiscence, Crash etc). Through flashbacks we saw that Henry also interviewed Celia's supervisor and mentor Bill Compton (Jonathan Pryce - The Two Popes, Game of Thrones TV series etc).

So how would the story conclude? You can find them all in this interesting movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Since I already knew that this is a psychological thriller movie, I was ready for some slow pace story which intrigued me maybe not immediately from the start but through the meticulous way of story telling. During the interview and through the various flash back scenes, we were shown carefully on what truly happened 8 years ago which was very interesting and raised my curiosity. 

As a movie which focused on finding out the truth through the interviews, the main attraction would be how well the cast portraying their characters. This time I was satisfied with Chris Pine's performance as he was convincing in his role. Thandiwe Newton was able to match him and Jonathan Pryce quite impressive too. However, Laurence Fishburne did not have large screen time and probably did not have the chance to show his capability. There were also other minor support roles, though only one face that I was familiar with, i.e. Corey Johnson (Morbius, The Last Days of Lehman Brothers TV series etc) as Austrian Agent Karl Stein.

During the opening or closing credits, I think I missed out on seeing information which I found out later after reading on the internet, that this film was based on the novel of the same title written by Olen Steinhauer. He also wrote the screenplay and was known for writing best seller spy fiction novel titled The Tourist, as well as creator of Berlin Station TV series. The movie was directed by Janus Metz whose prior works were mostly short films, documentaries and episodes of TV series. But I personally felt his directing here was good.

Overall this is an entertaining movie for me. It is not the kind of full action spy film but more like an investigation story in the spy world through intelligent dialogues and well balanced flash back scenes. The best thing I felt of the movie would definitely be the ending which had a smart twist that managed to surprise me. And for a 101 minutes duration movie, it felt just nice and not boring. So if you are into this sort of film, it should be pretty satisfying. The movie is available on Prime Video.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars