I think it's safe to say Olga Kurylenko
is the Patron Saint of this blog. Some of my earliest reviews were
of her video game based films Hitman and Max Payne, where she captured the spirit of what
A Ghoul Versus... is all about with jilted line delivery and
general vacuousness in regards to acting. She was dramatically
improved in Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion, where she turned in a pretty good
performance, but was right back to her bag of tricks in this year's
DELIGHTFUL atrocity that was Vampire Academy.
This leads us to her latest film,
the November Man. I know next to nothing about this film, as it
was in and out of theaters pretty quick because Pierce Brosnan quite
isn't the box office draw he used to be. Despite this short window,
it did turn a profit, so much in fact that a sequel is already being
planned. I saw a few trailers for this, it looked like James Bond
only not quite. This film is based off the novels of the same name,
and in true Hollywood fashion it's based off the SEVENTH book of the
series. Chronology, what's that?
The movie is directed by Roger
Donaldson, who has a somewhat respectable and varied filmography with
films such as No Way Out, Cocktail, Species, and Dante's
Peak. The movie was co-written by Karl Gajdusek, who was also
the writer of Oblivion so hopefully he can continue his streak
of making Kurylenko sound intelligent when she opens her mouth.
Interesting bit of trivia here, the other writer of this movie is
Michael Finch, who is currently writing the reboot to HITMAN.
Good God, it's Six Degrees Of Olga up in this piece! And with that,
it's time to see is Pierce Brosnan still has the suave and
sophisticated spy game with A Ghoul Versus The November Man!
A caption tells us it's Montenegro 2008
as we see Pierce Brosnan bitching out Chris Hemsworth for getting too
friendly with one of the cute waitresses at a cafe. No wait, that's
Liam? No? Oh, it's ANOTHER Australian lookalike named Luke Bracey.
I'm not familiar with him, but looking at his filmography he played
the Cobra Commander in the second G.I. Joe movie so that means
we'll be seeing him again soon. I also see he's playing Johnny Utah
in a Point Break remake, because Hollywood won't rest until
they've completely ruined the memory of Patrick Swayze. Consider
this a little preview of when I do an Original Vs. Remake of Red
Dawn!
The
two head into a car and begin arming themselves, and let's just pause
a moment while I turn the subtitles on for this thing. Brosnan's
accent here is THICK, to say the least. The two are CIA agents Peter
Devereaux and David Mason, here in Montenegro to protect the American
ambassador who is the target in an assassination attempt. Oh... joy.
Another assassination plot RIGHT after Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, eh?
With David sitting in a tower with a sniper rifle to provide support,
Peter enters a public square for a meeting dressed as the ambassador.
Peter spots a man in a blue suit running towards him, but orders
David not to shoot because there's a young boy in the line of fire.
David doesn't listen and kills the assassin, with the very
unfortunately side effect of also killing the boy. Peter is
understandably PISSED.
We
jump to five years later, where Peter has now retired to live in
Switzerland. His quiet life is quickly interrupted by the appearance
of his former boss, Director John Hanley, who wants him to do ONE
LAST JOB. Hanley is played by the eternally excellent Bill
Smitrovich, an actor who's been in the game for over thirty years and
is one of those “Hey, It's THAT Guy!” actors. Personally, he'll
always be Bob Bletcher from the TV show Millennium,
a show I will NEVER shut up about because it was gone way too soon
dammit! Hanley lays out the plot for us, Arkady Federov, the next
president of Russia, is killing everyone from his shadowy past that
might complicate his future. Several of these have been undercover
CIA contacts, as well as Peter's old friends. There is an undercover
agent named Natalia Ulanova that wants to be extracted before she's
next, with the added bonus that she has some SERIOUS intel on Federov
that'll change everything.
Hanley
wants Peter to do the extraction, taking her from Moscow to safety in
Helsinki. Peter agrees because it appears he has old feelings for
Natalia, and also because it wouldn't be much a movie if he did.
Natalia gets the news the operation is on, taking time to break into
Federov's safe and take pictures of some photographs he keeps in
there. She quickly leaves the building, although does a poor job of
covering her tracks as Federov notices his safe is open and puts two
and two together. The CIA tracks her as she drives away via the
assistance of a remote drone, which we see is being controlled by
David. Wow, he got to keep his job after Montenegro? Maybe the CIA
has a “kill three kids and you're out” policy, so he only got a
strike for that.
With
only five minutes to go before she hits the safe zone, the movie
decides things are going to smoothly and throws several black SUVs at
her. They quickly box her in and things look bad until Peter shows
up to shoot everyone dead. Yeah, nameless foreign goon in a Pierce
Brosnan film? I DO NOT like your chances. Natalia hops into Peter's
car and they head towards the extraction point. She is surprised to
see him, even though Hanley told Pierce she requested him personally
for the mission. Since that went too well, we get the next monkey
wrench: Hanley's boss Perry Weinstein pops up on a video screen to
take over the operation, as he's VERY interested in the intel Natalie
has gathered. He orders David's team to take over the extraction,
Hanley's recruitment of Peter having been a secret to everyone.
Peter
asks Natalia what she risked her life for, learning it's the name
“Mira Filipova”. He calls Hanley to tell him this, his friend
warning him about David. Too late though because David crosses
another entry off his Asshole Bucket List as he snipes Natalia
through the windshield, Peter bringing the car to a halt. He must
have shot her with a Kamino saberdart though, because she has JUST
enough time to give Peter the cell phone she took the incriminating
photos with before dying. Where do you even BUY plot convenient
bullets? Devastated, Peter cradles her head in his arms before
looking up at the building was standing on, BLOODY FUCKING VENGEANCE
on his face. In case you are wondering, Brosnan most definitely
still has “it”.
David
and his team pack up and leave in an unmarked van, Peter casually
headshotting the driver as he pulls out of the parking garage. He
shoots the other two who rush out the side door, but not David who
had the foresight to go out the other side. They draw their guns for
a standoff, but then quickly lower them as they're shocked to see
each other. Peter realizes he's fucked up bad and walks away, David
letting him go. Peter hails a cab to go to the airport, looking
through Natalia's phone and finding the photos were of a pretty young
woman.
Hanley
looks up Mira, but before he can get very far armed men burst into
his office and tase him into unconsciousness. Not enough going on
for your liking? Next we go to the Belgrade Center for Refuges,
where American investigative journalist Edgar Simpson meets with a
social worker there named Alice Fournier. Alice is Olga Kurylenko's
character, but we don't get to learn anything about her because the
film cuts away for ANOTHER introduction. This one is Federov's
personal assassin Alexa arriving in the city, and does she look like
she means BUSINESS as she's packing more guns than the Punisher.
We
return to the embassy, where Weinstein has showed up to personally
conduct David's debriefing. He orders him to kill Peter before Peter
can come after them for killing Natalia, David accepting the
assignment. Alexa heads to visit one of her contacts for information
on Mira, learning she was put in the care of Alice. It does look
like Alice's dance card is going to be pretty full today, because
Peter also gets this same information when he sneaks into Hanley's
office and knocks out the tech crew scouring the place after the
abduction. He calls into the embassy to have them track Alice's cell
phone, impersonating one of the agents. David figures this out
pretty quickly, so pretty much everyone in the movie is now headed to
the diner where Alice is meeting Edgar for lunch.
Peter
gets there first, sprinting Alice out the back of the building before
Alexa can stab her. David and his team show up on motorcycles, and
we have ourselves a frantic chase scene. Peter knocks one of the men
off his cycle by BRUTALLY cracking him with a metal canister in an
amazing looking shot. Peter and Alice RUN THROUGH THE BACK OF A
CROWDED KITCHEN, and this movie now has the full Ghoul Seal of
Approval! They lose the CIA agents in a marketplace, Peter taking
the time to call David on his cell to playfully taunt them. These
guys have a VERY good chemistry, this movie is incredibly fun so far.
After
jacking a car to drive away, Peter asks Alice about Mira. Alice says
she hasn't seen her in over three years, Peter warning her that if
Mira can't be found they'll come after her instead. She takes Peter
back to her office so he can see her files on Mira, but he doesn't
find anything helping. He then notices a wanted poster pinned to the
wall of a local pimp that he recognizes as Simi Denisov, a man who
served as Federov's right hand man during his days as a twisted
general in the army. They go to see Denisov at his base of
operations, which is of course a strip bar. How come these guys
never hole up at a Starbucks or something?
Peter
tries to get information out of Denisov by telling him he's next on
Federov's hit list, wondering why the future president is trying to
bury all the skeletons in his closet. We learn Federov initiated the
war with Chechnya by blowing up a building of Russian soldiers, with
the bombshell being the CIA helped him set it all up. Mira, who was
a “working girl” in Federov's employ at the time was a witness to
all this and her testimony can bring him down. I'm hoping she has
some kind of proof of this, otherwise it's a bit silly to think
Federov couldn't easily discredit a hooker if this became public.
After
this the film begins to drag badly, as we get about fifty scenes of
all that characters doing really unimportant stuff. We see Alexa
tailing Edgar, Hanley getting interrogated by a CIA agent named
Celia, Peter and Alice breaking into an apartment to mooch food, and
David taking his hot neighbour Sarah to a bar and banging her. I
don't care about ANY of this, I just want to see Brosnan whooping
ass. Things get back on track when Peter gives Alice a wad of money
and a phone, telling her to hide somewhere safe. He sneaks into
David's apartment and holds a knife to Sarah's throat, asking David
to choose between saving her or killing him.
This
is based off the subplot that opened the film, with Peter trying to
teach him you can't care about people in this business. Despite
everything that's happened, Peter still cares about David and wants
to see if there's anything redeemable left in him. Peter takes the
knife and slashes Sarah's femoral artery, running out while David
calls an ambulance to save her. This was flat out DISTURBING, now I
really want to see Brosnan play a psychotic villain. Hell, I want to
see Brosnan playing ANYONE more than he has been. Since he wasn't
chosen to continue playing James Bond, he really hasn't done anything
major outside of Mamma Mia and
the Ghost Writer.
This movie is showing Brosnan is still undeniably a major cinematic
presence that can easily carry a film, get with the program Hollywood
and start casting him more!
Click here for Part 2!
Click here for Part 2!
No comments:
Post a Comment