‘The November Man’ review
By Steven Cayer, Senior Columnist
2/5
If you are looking for a heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat spy thriller, you might want to look away from Pierce Brosnan’s latest film, The November Man, based on the book There Are No Spies by Bill Granger.
Brosnan plays a lethal ex-CIA agent named Peter Devereaux who is brought in for one last mission. He’s tasked with protecting a valuable witness who has evidence against the soon-to-be Russian president. He then stumbles onto something much greater and ends up turning himself into a target.
I just kept thinking about how much this seems like Brosnan going for another James Bond-esque role. Back in 2005, when he retired from the role of James Bond, his production company announced that they were working on The November Man. In 2007, the film appeared to be cancelled. Five years later though, it was revived by Brosnan and director Roger Donaldson.
Donaldson had all of the ingredients to make an awesome spy thriller with this film, but he put them in the wrong order. The plot becomes far too convoluted and also very predictable.
I give Brosnan some credit, since his performance was very dynamic. I actually cared about what happened to him, as I did with his co-star, Olga Kurylenko. Both did a very good job with what they had.
There’s supposedly already a sequel in the works—I just hope it’s better than this one.