The Courier, Review: Delivers on time A spy story with no fights, no gadgets, agents who neither carry guns nor seduce each other, The Courier is a hark-back to the genre that can be traced at least to deglamourised espionage outings like The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin, way back in the 60s. It’s not positioned as a competitor for the James Bond or Mission Impossible series, or their spin-offs, and is, in fact, based on a true story. Unwavering focus on the plot, and all round co...

The Spy Who Dumped Me, Review: Jumped, Pumped, Slumped, Stumped Pre-credit scenes à la James Bond, the JB theme variation in a couple of scenes and a title that is a clear Ian Fleming lift—remember The Spy Who Loved me? This one is an action comedy, with both components in equal measure. Action is fast and furious and the comedy punctuates the thrills, with the help of a comedians+mimics cast. The Spy Who Dumped Me is funny enough to make you chuckle and laugh at regular interval...

Mission Impossible-Fall Out, Review: “The greater the suffering, the greater the peace” Sixth in the TV series-to-big-screen franchise, Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible is aptly titled Fall Out. Besides the threat of a triple nuclear fall-out, there are falls, and fall outs of/from all possible kinds, in the universe of CIA operative Ethan Hunt: Motorcycles, cars, trucks and helicopters constitute one bunch; land, water and snow are the nature division; CIA-spurned rogue orga...

Sicario 2-Day of the Soldado, Review: Benicio and Josh raise the' False Flag' and kill at will ‘Soldado’ is Spanish for a soldier who fights for a cause. ‘Sicario’ was the name of those who resisted Roman colonial invaders, and that in Mexico, it means ‘hit-man’. And in Sicario (2): Day of the Soldado, the twain meet. The movie is not too different from Sicario (1), but different enough to hold its own. Overall, it is just a notch below its predeces...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent You have to hand it to filmmaker Alex Gibney (GOING CLEAR), he has taken on everything from Eliot Spitzer’s political downfall to the Enron debacle to Lance Armstrong’s doping to soft-money “super-lobbyist” Jack Abramoff to Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, not to mention Nigerian music legend Fela Kuti. So it comes as no surprise that Gibney goes from wrestling Xenu to rattling the NSA’s cage with ...

A Bridge of Spies, Review: Spyelberg on spy-swapping--one of theirs for two of ours Old school film-making at its charming best is what Steven Spielberg delivers in this potential thriller, that is, instead, crafted as a compelling commentary--on the sordid business of spying, the acceptance of the hard truth that a foreign spy operating in your country is as loyal as your spies indulging in espionage abroad, and the sacred right of every accused in America to a fair trial, be it a US citizen...

Sicario, Review: One drug cartel is better than two Breath-taking aerial shots of the US-Mexico border area and amazingly choreographed encounter scenes are the highlight of Sicario, a drug cartel crime thriller about an FBI-CIA joint operation that does on land what the US army and air-force have been doing in foreign countries for decades: seek, find and eliminate the enemy. Every player has questionable motives, except a couple of conscientious FBI operatives, and even they eventually fall...

In the only Urdu/Hindi film he ever made, Indian cinema’s Bengali language grandmaster Satyajit Ray used chess as a metaphor, setting it against the backdrop of the crumbling Navabi rule over Avadh (Lucknow), and its imminent take-over by the British East India company. It was simply called Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players). Another chess film, a 30-minute short made in 1988, was called Queen Sacrifice. The present film manages with just a pawn sacrifice! Two feature-length recent ...

The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Review: US nephew, Russian nephew, German niece and the sinister Italian family plot It’s not about a man or the man, and the clever acronym for the secret agent network is a clear reference to Uncle Sam, alias the President of the United States of America, even though United Network Command for Law and Enforcement (UNCLE) is formally created only in the very last shot of the film. Then, again, it is not about Americans only. There’s a Russian KGB man too,...

Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation, Review: Bond-Bourne amalgamation You couldn’t escape noticing that the Mumbai press preview of Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation was being held at the renovated Fun Republic. Two hours and eleven minutes later, you found out that the film was not about a 'nation', but about international rogues. That stated, for once, the expectations, unconsciously raised by a trivial similarity in the names of the venue and the film, were met. Inspiration for...

Spy, Review: Mel iss a delight Spy thrillers have spawned spoofs by the dozen, ever since James Bond’s maiden foray, Dr. No. (We can discount the earlier Casino Royale). Almost all of them were done in the farce/slapstick style. Here comes one that is part satire, part tribute, but laced with original entertaining punches. In spite of a protagonist who is a literal heavy-weight, and some off-colour jokes, writer-director Paul Feig succeeds in making the audience root for her, like a reg...