Fri 18 Mar 2022
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE NOVEMBER MAN (2014).
Posted by Steve under Suspense & espionage films[5] Comments
THE NOVEMBER MAN. Relativity Media, 2014. Pierce Brosnan, Luke Bracey, Olga Kurylenko, Bill Smitrovich, Amila Terzimehic. Will Patton. Director: Roger Donaldson.
The concept is compelling; it’s the execution that’s flawed. That’s pretty much how I would describe The November Man to anyone who wanted a brief, succinct answer to the question: “What did you think of the movie?â€
Adapted from Bill Granger’s espionage thriller There Are No Spies, the seventh entry in the author’s “November Man” series, the movie is grounded in the realities of the post-Cold War world and has a solid, reliable lead in Pierce Brosnan. But it ultimately ends up being nothing more than a stunningly average spy film, one that relies on twists and turns that are – for those familiar with the genre, at least – clearly visible from miles away.
The movie opens at a fast clip, with the viewer immediately thrust into the action. CIA operative Peter Devereaux (Brosnan) and junior partner, David Mason (Luke Bracey) are in Montenegro and are on an assassination mission. Things don’t go according to plan. Brosnan is hit. And a young child is wounded, perhaps fatally.
Years pass and we find a retired Devereaux (the spy in retirement trope!) living in Lausanne, Switzerland. That’s when his former boss, John Hanley (Bill Smitrovich) shows up, asking Devereaux to take on one last mission: to extract a CIA asset from Russia by the name of Natalia Ulanova. She’s currently working for Arkady Fedorov, a former Russian Army general who is on his way to becoming president of the Russian Federation and has information that supposedly could bring Federov crashing down.
That’s where the twists and turns begin. Can Devereaux really trust that he is taking on a legitimate mission or has he been set up? Things get interesting when we learn that Federov apparently kidnapped and sexually assaulted a young girl during the Second Chechen War.
Things get more interesting when we learn that this girl may still be alive and that she may have been witness to a meeting between a CIA Agent and Federov that set into motion that deadly conflict.
Most of the film follows Devereaux as he attempts to make sense of a confusing, fast-moving situation. He not only finds himself at odds with Mason, his former protegee, but having to protect a social worker (Olga Kurylenko) who supposedly knows the whereabouts of Federov’s victim.
Now don’t get me wrong. I like Roger Donaldson’s work and consider his thriller, No Way Out (1987) one of the best, if consistently underappreciated, spy films ever. But here he feels as if he was just going through the motions. While there’s not necessarily anything wrong with the direction, there’s nothing particularly captivating about it either. The action sequences, filmed on the streets of Belgrade, are about as ordinary as can be. If it weren’t for Brosnan, one wouldn’t really pay much attention to them at all.

March 18th, 2022 at 5:25 pm
I liked this one much better than this but agree that it needed a little extra oomph. I thought Brosnan carried it easily and found it a good adaptation of Granger’s book if not exactly how I pictured Devereaux.
Considering how rare it is to see a serious spy drama done anywhere near right these days I gave this one more leeway than I probably should have.
Nothing special, but nothing special well done with a better than usual cast.
March 18th, 2022 at 5:46 pm
I liken it to the myriad mid-tier spy films from the 1970s. There were the classics (Condor, Day Jackal, Parallax, Conversation) and then there was everything else — and there were a lot of them. This film is in the latter camp. There’s nothing overly wrong with it, but it just doesn’t shine either
March 18th, 2022 at 7:05 pm
There were in all 13 books in Bill Granger’s “November Man” series, and I’ve always intended to read one of them, but so far I haven’t. I had no idea that a movie had been made of one of them.
Even though Jon (and other reviewers) haven’t seen much other than old material recycled in it, the trailer does make it look and sound interesting.
March 19th, 2022 at 4:23 pm
[…] Jonathan Lewis turns his attentive gaze over The November Man (2014) at Mystery*File. […]
March 20th, 2022 at 8:25 pm
This was a real clunker for me. I had really high hopes for this (as a Bond fan) and watched it three times in an effort to like it.
Sadly, it’s just dull. Much of the second half is an interrogation, like they ran out of money and couldn’t film anywhere.
Brosnan’s character is wildly inconsistent. He starts out being against any personal relationships, yet a daughter is hastily introduced in the third act. One sequence also has him stabbing an innocent civilian just to make a vague point. Weird.
I was hoping for a series of VOD films here, but it wasn’t to be.
Remember Brosnan saying he prioritised tourist spots when choosing a film, and that was a sobering to hear, but not surprising.