Kingsman—The Secret Service, Review: Tinkering tailors, soldiering spies

Opening titles assembled bond-style, prologue in the ‘father’s sacrifice will not go in vain, for the son will step into his shoes, to fight again’ mould, carefully crafted plot that is as contemporary as it could get, a canvas that grows bigger by the minute and a narrative style that is irreverent while paying rich tributes, and preposterous while tickling your ribs as many times as the number of ribs you have. That, in brief, is what you go through in the just over two hours that come under the title: Kingsman—The Secret Service.

Based upon the comic book The Secret Service, the film tells the tale Kingsman, no, not a British royalty loyal, but a super-secret, private (!) spy organisation in London. Operating from a top of the range tailoring shop, the network is chaired by Arthur and has among its ranks operatives and trainers named after knight-soldiers (yes, yes, symbolically) Galahad, Lancelot and Merlin. Its elite intelligence men (spies?) wear immaculate three-piece suits and carry an assortment of weapons, including pens, rings, umbrellas and shoes (?)—all innocuous but all lifted from the Ian Fleming/James Bond arsenal, or its extension. Umbrellas will never be the same again.

While on a mission, a newly promoted recruit, Lancelot, sacrifices his own life to save his senior, Galahad, but Galahad, being a sworn to secrecy secret agent, like Lancelot, can only offer his clueless wife (Michelle) and son a Gary (‘Eggsy’) Unwin a phone number to call in case they are dire straits. Some two decades later, Galahad receives a call from Gary, which leads him to consider inducting this confused, strong, unrefined but promising street kid into Kingsman, and put him through the agency’s ultra-competitive training programme. Just about then, a global threat emerges from a twisted American billionaire technocrat, Valentine, and his concubine, Gazelle, whose feet can decapitate any opponent, both horizontally and vertically. Eggsy has to go through endurance tests of the most unimaginable kind (including adopting a dog) and a grooming that will turn him from a pleb(ian) Eggsy Unwin into a reincarnated Eliza Doolittle, courtesy Henry Higgins (renamed Harry Hart, also known as Galahad).

About the curious name Eggsy, Mark Millar, who wrote the comic, reveled, “It is my old school friend’s name. One of my three best friends that I used to hang around with, and the reason he was called Eggsy - and he wasn’t a tough guy or anything like the character in the film - is just that he didn’t like eggs I dedicated the book to him.” Are you counting the tributes and inspirations? All the Bond films, especially the early ones, the mythological historicals about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the Fear Factor reality shows, My Fair Lady, Trading Places, the X-Men… more will emerge as you get into the second half of the film, including Star Wars (death of Sir Alec Guinness).

The script is largely the work of Jane Goldman, with whom Matthew co-wrote Stardust, X-Men Fist Class and Kick-Ass, who started as a journalist. A friend had the film rights to his book Stardust bought by producer Matthew Vaughn, and suggested she adapt it for the screen. She opines that comic books are often already movie shaped. “They are visual and therefore easier to adapt.” On the process of characterisation, Mark Millar insists, “Character drives plot. Everything successful I’ve ever written has been character led.” And to the credit of both writers, characters and motivations in Kingsman are well-defined.

Matthew de Vere Vaughn (if you are curious why have I brought in his unknown middle name here, see the film and note the name Galahad adopts when he goes to meet Valentine!) produced Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, wanted this film to be a spy thriller with “fun and smiles”. So it is. It is not a parody or spoof, like Goldginger, the original Casino Royale, the Austin Powers series, The Last of the Secret Agents, Operation Kid Brother, or the films that which had a lead actor with a code that went 007 ½ ,008/009/006/077, etc. (Trying my hand at writing spoofs, as a teenager, I once named a character Games Fond).

It is genuinely humorous. Language jokes, political jokes (Obama, Thatcher, Reagan), lampooning the archived front-page headlines of the British tabloid The Sun, the very premise of a free-lance secret service, an observation that the Chinese Secret Service, unlike the MI5, Mossad, CIA and KGB, does not have a name, are but some of the examples. But the fun-poking does not preclude filling-up the screen with oodles and oodles of gory violence, some of it old-fashioned, simple, blood-letting, and some technically so spell-binding that it makes you guiltily revel in applauding the bursting of human heads into mushrooms of colourful lights and smoke. So, it did not come as a surprise that the Showcase cinema chain of the UK has this warning displayed on its website:

**Please be aware that Kingsman: The Secret Service contains a sequence of flashing lights which might affect guests who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy**

Most of the cast and some of the main team are British, many in their 40s, like director Vaughn himself. Colin Firth (Galahad) is 45. Noticed in 1996’s Shakespeare in Love, Firth was seen in Bridget Jones’ Diary and Love Actually, before finding more acclaim in 2009’s A Single Man, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and winning an Oscar for his role in The King’s Speech. It will take some suspension of disbelief that the Firth in The King’s Speech is peddling mirth in this ‘free speech’ film, along with some bits of in-depth emoting. As natural and precise as ever, Michael Caine is Arthur. There was to be a scene where he is digitally altered to a much younger age, but that has been excised from the film. It is the film debut of Taron Egerton. If we compare his features to the Bond actors, we can find some similarity with Daniel Craig. He was in awe of Firth, and it shows on screen too. Unaided by sharp looks, he is still able to strike an emotional chord in the family scenes. Sophie Cookson as his partner in spyime, is type-cast and the obvious ploy of her overcoming the fear of heights is routinely, albeit competently exploited. As Merlin, Mark Strong has an odd accent (“A good accent does not make you a good spy”, is one of the lines in the film). With proper English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, American and Algerian-French accents already counted, one could not fit in. He seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

Playing a double amputee, with a rocking chair kind of sword-mechanism, a pair of carbon-fibre running blades instead of feet, Sofia Boutella as Gazelle has a meaty role and steals a quite a few scenes from Samuel L. Jackson, whose lisp and sibilance, and the Pulp Fiction hangover, prove limiting factors. Algeria-born, Paris-bred actress Sofia Boutella, is a 32-year-old trained ballerina and Olympic-level rhythmic gymnast, who studied acting as well, at Stella Adler. Almost all the shots featuring her in combat are both human and technical marvels. She’s going to go places, one of which is India. Sofia is starring in Jet Trash, the story of two lost girls who attract trouble in India. Samantha Womack as Michelle Unwin and Geoff Dean as her second husband are highly credible. And guess what Mark Hamill is doing in this film? He is cast a climate change expert, Professor Arnold, who is first kidnapped and then …well, Valentine, who makes SIM cards for a living, has his own theories on global warming, and how to cope with it.

Music by Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson, cinematography by George Richmond and film editing by Eddie Hamilton and Jon Harris are all of a high calibre.      

*The moral of the film: There is no such thing as a free SIM card. A free-SIM card can kill.

Rating: ***1/2

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**From the film’s official website: MR PORTER and director Mr. Matthew Vaughn have created a bespoke collection from Ms Arianne Phillips’ costume design for Kingsman: The Secret Service, to be released in early 2015. Each piece is crafted in Britain by heritage manufacturers, from the tailoring to the ties.

Hand-picked collaborations

Ranging from tailoring to eyewear

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Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4KCeouXMq3XwJ2nYTSeiiNDw8DK6Ux43