Tony Scott directs the slick conspiracy cyberthriller but Gene Hackman owns it as the veteran NSA agent gone underground who takes on the new blood with old school skills.
Category: spies and espionage
Daniel Craig is James Bond in ‘Casino Royale’
Daniel Craig became the sixth actor to play James Bond in the official series in this tough, lean, faithful adaptation of Ian Fleming’s first novel. It revived the flagging franchise.
Richard Burton is ‘The Spy Who Came in from the Cold’ on Criterion Channel
Martin Ritt directs this superb film of John le Carré’s novel, the first of many adaptations of le Carré’s wary novels of Cold War espionage and still one of the best.
‘American Ultra’ – stoners and spies on Netflix
American Ultra (2015) reworks The Bourne Identity as a slacker comedy with a killer punchline. Jesse Eisenberg is Mike Howell, a sweet, underachieving stoner prone to panic attacks. He gets by as convenience store clerk in a dead-end West Virginia town with a supportive girlfriend, Phoebe (Kristen Stewart), who is almost impossibly understanding when it […]
‘Intelligence: Complete Series’ on Netflix
The Canadian domestic espionage drama is smarter and more sophisticated crime drama than the American counterparts of its era, cleverer in its tangle of narratives and less showy in its visual style.
‘A Most Wanted Man’ on Hulu and free on Hoopla
A Most Wanted Man (2014) is the final film completed by Philip Seymour Hoffman before his untimely death in 2014. That alone is reason enough to see the film, adapted from the post 9/11 novel by John le Carré and directed by Anton Corbijn, a music video veteran who becomes more accomplished with each feature. […]
‘Burn After Reading’ – unclassified CIA laughs on Amazon Prime
Burn After Reading (2008) – After the darkness of No Country for Old Men, the Coen Bros. eased up with a deadpan espionage farce played out by small fish convinced that they are in deep waters, a film much lighter and significantly slighter but put together with such perfection that you can’t help but be […]
‘Skyfall’ – James Bond faces his past on Amazon Prime and Hulu
Skyfall (2012), the 23rd official James Bond movie, attempts to make 007 more man than number as it works through some of Bond’s issues (James Bond has issues?) while he grudgingly returns to her majesty’s secret service when a conspiracy targets M and MI-5. It takes itself awfully seriously while doing some pretty crazy things […]
‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ – Matt Damon’s final run on Peacock
Matt Damon returns in the “Bourne” franchise in The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), playing the great anti-Bond of Hollywood action cinema for his third and final time. Jason Bourne is a former covert assassin essentially programmed by the CIA to be an emotionless killing machine, and he’s determined to reclaim his identity and his humanity. His […]
‘Haywire’ – bad-ass action on HBO Max
Haywire (2011) is Steven Soderbergh’s drive-in assassin action movie by way of a sleek art-house conspiracy thriller. According to the director, the film sprung from his desire to develop a film around the talents and skill of mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano, and the finished film — which casts Carano as a covert agent […]