Back Rowe Reviews
Real Time Movie Reviews from the Back Row of a Theater

The November Man (R)

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Directed by: Roger Donaldson
Starring: Pierce Brosnan
August 2014

This review was originally tweeted in Real-time from the back row of a movie theater and appears @BackRoweReviews. Though efforts were made to tease rather than ruin this movie’s memorable lines and moments, some spoilers may exist in the following evaluation. The original tweets appear in black, while follow-up comments appear in red. For concerns over objectionable content, please first refer to one of the many parental movie guide websites. All ratings are based on a four star system. Happy reading!

The November Man

Taking pictures of pictures in Moscow.
Sounds easy enough, but it’s a dangerous occupation. Especially if you forget to return the key.

“42 is complete.” Now you’ve gone and made Brosnan mad.
Brosnan’s Bond always had to work really hard to dispatch bad guys, but his character here is more like 24’s Jack Bauer…casually strolling along and downing assailants as if he’d memorized enemy emplacement patterns in a FPS video game.

“Atrocities are like reality TV.” Hmm...
The film is pretty soft on social commentary, but this is one instance where ethical criticism is dispensed. And it’s a point well made.

Brosnan finishes his pupil’s training. An incisive scene.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this scene has a surprisingly sharp edge.

Brosnan extracts information by playing an old Russian game.
I don’t think I’d wait until after the second click to divulge the intel though. Either squeal from the start or hold out to the bitter end…that’s the way I see it.

Corrupt agent discovers Brosnan’s “soft underbelly” and exploits it.
This plot point is poetic injustice since having a relational liability is precisely what Brosnan warned his protégé about from the very beginning. Do as I say not as I do, apparently.

Final analysis: a decent yarn with foreign flair and some pulse pounding action scenes.
But don’t expect Bond or Bourne levels of high-octane chase/fight scenes.

Rating:
2 1/2 out 4 stars. Brosnan isn’t Bond anymore, but he’s still respectable in action roles.

Kudos to the movie’s casting department because this project was a perfect selection for the gracefully aging action star. Brosnan is in remarkably good shape, so espionage yarns with moderate action work are still on the table for the spy genre stalwart. Let’s cut right to the chase, this is a well acted/directed/written political thriller with beautiful European locations and a clutch of adroitly choreographed action sequences. If there’s a drawback to the film, it’s the story’s first twenty minutes, which play an elaborate game of hopscotch all over Europe while setting up the plot and key players in this international intrigue. The rapid globetrotting is exhausting, not to mention confusing, and needlessly muddies the premise to the point where we don’t know what the movie’s goal is or even where in the world the bulk of the action is going to take place. Or even if we’ll care once we figure these things out. Once the story finally settles in, which is right around the time Operation 42 is executed, the enjoyment factor begins to gradually increase since at least we know which direction the plot is headed in at that point. The reemergence of Brosnan’s former pupil is an engaging subplot, but one gets the sense that far more dramatic intensity could’ve been extracted from this teacher/student dynamic. The “enemy holds the hero’s loved one for ransom” followed by “hero exacts revenge on enemy and rescues his captive family member” is a standard ending for this genre…it would’ve been nice to see something a little less conventional here. My only other criticism of the story is the head-scratching explanation for why Brosnan’s nickname is the movie’s title. Even after its meaning is interpreted, the appellative doesn’t seem to have much relevance to the story, relegating this intriguing title to the expansive ranks of dumb movie names. And why release a movie with November in the title in the month of August? Since it isn’t a blockbuster action picture anyway, this film should’ve been released in the fall. Bottom line: Brosnan is no longer Bond, nor does he need to be. Brosnan can churn out movies just like this one for many years to come until he decides to hang it up in the December of his career. Now that metaphor actually makes sense!