The November Man: Bond meets Bourne meets John Le Carré 

Four times James Bonder Pierce Brosnan and the franchise parted company about a dozen years ago. Shortly after that, he started making plans to film a spy novel quite different from Bond sagas. It took ten years to materialise, but materialise it did. So, we have a film in which Irishman Brosnan, (who lives in Malibu and Hawaii) plays an American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) man. An Australian TV actor plays his apprentice Mason, a Russian actress plays a Chechen victim of Russian brutality, a Sarajevo born actress is cast as a Russian assassin, a Yugoslavian actor-producer-director dons the garb of a Russian president hopeful. And they are directed by an Australia-born director, Roger Donaldson, who lives in New Zealand.

Peter Devereaux (Pierce Brosnan), an ex-CIA agent, is pulled out of retirement in Switzerland by his old handler Hanley (Bill Smitrovich). His mission: retrieve valuable information on a Russian politician named Arkady Fedorov (Lazar Ristovski) from an old flame, in return for securing safe passage to her into the USA. But before he can pull her out, she is killed. Accused of war crimes, Fedorov has sent a hired assassin to destroy the trail of evidence leading back to him. Devereaux must play a game of cat and mouse with the young CIA recruit he helped train, Mason (Luke Bracey), while trying to locate a Chechen refugee, who is also on the hit list of Fedorov. All paths lead to Alice Fournier, a Serbian social worker with a secret (Olga Kurylenko).

The November Man was mostly shot in Belgrade, which replaced Berlin as the locale. According to Donaldson (Cocktail, The Bank Job, Dante’s Peak, Thirteen Days and No Way Out), “The script was originally set in Berlin, but we changed the whole movie to Belgrade, rewrote it for Belgrade, so it’s not Belgrade doubling for Berlin, it’s supposed to be Belgrade.”

The film is adapted from a 1987 novel, There Are No Spies, by late author Bill Granger. An award-winning novelist and reporter, Bill Granger began his literary career in 1979 with Code Name November (first published as The November Man), the book that became an international sensation and introduced Peter Devereux. His second novel, Public Murders, a Chicago police procedural, won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1981. He wrote usually under his own name but sometimes under the pseudonym Joe Gash or Bill Griffiths. In all, Bill Granger published twenty-two novels, including thirteen in the November Man series, and three non-fiction books. Granger passed away in 2012, aged 70. Michael Finch (co-writer of Predators) and Karl Gajdusek (Trespass) worked together on the script for November Man, with some help from producer Sriram Das, President of Das Films, which has co-produced this project. Das, who is just 36, graduated cum laude from Harvard University, with a BA in Social Studies, and received an MBA from Yale University.

The November Man derives its title from the nick-name given to Devereux, suggesting that anyone who crosses his path ends up dead, as in December. Almost bereft of the kind of gadgets that are Bond’s stock-in-trade, the film does use a contemporary technological device, the drone. There is plenty of mayhem, but it never gets gory. And the only scene that can be described as semi-steamy is a set-up between a villain and a murderous blast from his past, not Brosnan and a femme fatale. In fact, the film begins with Brosnan retired, and soon he loses the mother of his 12-13 year-old daughter, who dies in his arms. Towards the climax, the fiends grab his daughter. So, f-a-r from 007! Some of the chases remind you of the Bourne films, and a lot of the CIA scenario is what we have seen in John Le Carré’s novels, and films based on them. One recent example was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. One can even see some elements of the classic Sleuth, where a senior detective locks horns with a junior, in a battle for professional supremacy.

Donaldson has been careful with the casting and used unusual faces, in particular: Bill Smitrovich as Hanley and Amila Terzimehić as the Russian assassin. Bill (General Gabriel in Iron Man), a former acting teacher and now 67, is given a bald look. Was this inspired by the baldness of some of Ian Fleming’s megalomaniacs? Amila Terzimehić was born in Sarajevo, and is an Olympic-level athlete, dancer and award-winning student of the Academy of Performing Arts.

In terms of narrative, we have seen many films about evil, greedy men in the CIA, some at the very top, so that in itself is not novel. However, the suspense here is well held. You do begin to get confused when you keep discovering every 15 minutes that the character you are following is not what he or she appears to be. It is especially painful when you find that in a blink, the whole game has changed. Towards the end, there is one noisy scene in which Devereux kills guard after guard while they are taking pot-shots at him, in a hotel. Yet the Supremo, who is in one of the rooms, doesn’t hear a thing. On the plus side, Donaldson finds ways to make the zillionth car chase scene in an American film exciting.

So what has the ex-Bond been up to, and how does he acquit himself here? The James Bond franchise came Brosnan’s way in 1995. In 2005, he did the comic thriller The Matador, playing an assassin whose life is falling apart. In the 2008 musical comedy hit Mamma Mia!, based on the songs of the music group Abba, wherein he crooned ABBA songs (yes, actually sang them!) and you might also remember Mrs. Doubtfire, with his very good friend, the late Robin Williams. In the November Man, he plays his age, and yet he is part of some high voltage action. He has said that he had asked himself before he decided on the part, “Can I still walk straight? Do I still pack a punch?” Both answers being in the positive, he got going. At 60 going on 61, he’s lost none of the charisma, and it is good that the film comes twelve years after his last Bond outing, helping avoid immediate recall comparison. Although his company, Irish Dreamtime, has a stake in The November Man, he does not stash up all the meaty stuff. The actors are all part of a pretty democratic project.

Dominic Cooper (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Devil’s Double) was to play Mason after he wrapped up his work on the thriller Dead Man Down, but he opted for another franchise, Need for Speed. (It might be worthwhile mentioning that Cooper is appearing as Ian Fleming in BBC America’s new drama, Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond). Come in, Luke Bracey. Square faced and suitably dead-pan, he starts the film by smooching a waitress while waiting for Brosnan. Working in this set-up was a great experience for the Australian TV actor, who now has several major assignments in hand.

Olga Kurylenko, 34, who was seen in the Bond film Quantum of Solace and very recently in Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters, tries to play Alice Fournier with detachment, till two major twists in the story bring out some strong sentiments. Olga was born in Russia and lived in the port city of Berdyansk. Her father left when she was three years old, following her parents’ divorce, and in that respect, Kurylenko has followed in her parents’ footsteps: she is twice-divorced herself! Playing Fedorov is Lazar Ristovski, now 62. Born in Yugoslavia, he graduated as an actor at the Academy of Dramatic Arts of the University of Belgrade. He has had more than 3,000 performances on stage, and more than 40 appearances in films and TV, mostly in lead roles.

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9PSKL8XsfI