Tradecraft: Dark Knight Producer Attends Langley High
Deadline reports that Charles Roven, a producer on The Dark Knight, and his Atlas Entertainment partner Alex Gartner (Get Smart) have optioned an upcoming graphic novel hatched by producer/manager J.C. Spink and Christopher Cosmos called Langley High. According to the trade blog, "the protagonist is a student from Langley High, located 1.7 miles from CIA headquarters. His father is captured in Russia and when he’s disavowed as a CIA agent, the student teams with an undercover CIA agent teacher from the high school and goes on a mission of revenge." So it's basically The Rescue or Iron Eagle but with spies.... I love it! The Rescue was one of my favorite movies as a kid. Pure young adult escapism.
Tomm Coker and Daniel Freedman will adapt the alleged graphic novel into a film. My only question is whether it will ever actually materialize as a graphic novel, or if the galleys or script and concept art or whatever actually exists at this point served their purpose in getting the material optioned as a film. Remember when what ultimately became the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie was first announced? Supposedly it was based not directly on the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, but on an "upcoming comic book" by Lionel Wigram. That comic never materialized, and eventually what actually existed of it was released as a bonus for people who bought the DVD at Target, and it amounted to a few concept illustrations by John Watkiss (James Bond 007: Light of My Death), not an actual comic book. That happens a lot in Hollywood, when half-finished comics are really nothing more than marketing tools to sell screenplays. Anyway, I hope Langley High is really a comic, because I'd like to read it! I can't help be a little suspicious, however, since no publisher is mentioned. Either way, I'm excited for the possible movie, and hope it happens.
Sep 22, 2011
Fall Spy TV Preview: Person of Interest Debuts TonightThe fall spy TV season kicks off tonight with the J.J. Abrams/ Jonah Nolan collaboration Person of Interest at 9/8c on CBS. Jim Caviezel stars as an ex-CIA agent recruited by Lost’s Michael Emerson to use his skills for a very private intelligence operation. Expanding a theme from Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Emerson spies on the entire city of New York with 24/7 access to footage from every security camera in the city. In a Minority Report-like SF spin, he has a computer that analyzes all that footage and gives him the name of someone likely to be involved in a violent crime. Conveniently (for the narrative, if not the do-gooders), the computer apparently doesn’t have the capability to predict how the individual in question will be involved—whether the name represents a victim or a perp or a witness or what. It’s then up to Caviezel to use his CIA skills (and a large arsenal) to stop the crime. Caviezel proved a less-than-compelling lead (to put it nicely) in AMC’s misguided remake of The Prisoner, but I’m willing to give him another chance. The grey in his hair suits him in the previews, and it will be to his benefit not to have to stack up against Patrick McGoohan. He might have the equally unenviable task of measuring up to another Sixties spy star, however, since this former-spook-turned-NYC vigilante setup has undeniable shades of the Edward Woodward action drama The Equalizer… Emerson I’m a fan of, as I am of Abrams and Nolan, so I’m looking forward to giving this series a chance.
For all the spy show development we followed over the past year, relatively few of the shows mooted actually ended up on the fall TV schedule. The highest profile title was definitely Fox’s Exit Strategy, which starred Ethan Hawke as the Jim Phelps-like (he wishes) leader of an elite IMF-like team of spies called in by the CIA when a mission goes badly. Feature director Antoine Fuqua (who worked with Hawke in Training Day) helmed the pilot, and the red-hot team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci produced, which I would have thought would make the show a lock for a pick-up. That was before I read the script for the pilot, which was unfortunately awful. Apparently Kurtzman and Orci did their own re-write after the draft I read, but I guess it wasn’t enough for Fox. Maybe it got better, though. At some point I’ll probably review the unaired pilot.
The spy series that did make it (representing a very small fraction of all those that were bought, developed or even shot) include Person of Interest, Homeland (24 producer Howard Gordon’s new CIA drama starring Claire Danes, which premieres on Showtime October 2 at 10) and Pan-Am. The latter debuts Sunday night at 10/9c on ABC. I didn’t even realize that the Sixties-set stewardess drama had an espionage angle (involving some of the sexy stews being recruited by the CIA) until the reviews started mentioning it… usually in conjunction with a phrase like “awkwardly shoehorned.” Nevertheless, that got me excited to tune in!
The best spy pilot script that I read was for ABC’s Missing, a sort of female version of Taken starring Ashley Judd as a former CIA agent who heads to Europe to tear down the Eiffel Tower if she has to in order to save her kidnapped son. (See what they did there, with the gender switching?) Despite the derivative plot, the pilot script was fast-paced and exciting and delivered pretty much everything I want out of a weekly spy show, including genuine foreign locations. Missing was shot on location in various European cities including Prague, Istanbul (where Taken 2 is set) and Dubrovnik. Adriano Giannini (son of Mathis actor Giancarlo), GoldenEye villain Sean Bean and Colombiana’s Cliff Curtis co-star. While a world premiere for Missing’s pilot was recently set for the industry confab MIPCOM in October, ABC has yet to set a date for broadcast. So I’m guessing we won’t get to see it until mid-season.
In the meantime, development has already begun for next year’s potential shows, and there might be even more spy pilots in the works than there were for the last season. Just scan through the last few days’ news items, and stay tuned for more later today.
Person of Interest premieres tonight, Thursday, September 22 at 9pm Eastern
Pan-Am premieres Sunday, September 25, at 10pm Eastern
Homeland premieres Sunday, October 2, at 10pm Eastern (though the pilot is already available to watch for free now on Showtime's website and On Demand from certain cable providers)
Tradecraft: Cinemax is Hooked on Spies
Tradecraft: Cinemax is Hooked on SpiesDeadline reports that Cinemax has booked another action drama "set in the world of international espionage" from their Strike Back showrunner, Frank Spotnitz. This one, Nemesis (also known as Morton for some reason), is another UK co-production, but this time with BBC One as opposed to BSkyB. The former X-Files showrunner will be teaming with Kudos, the production company behind Spooks/MI-5. According to the trade blog, Alias' Melissa George (next seen opposite Pierce Brosnan in the A&E Stephen King miniseries Bag of Bones) stars as "a highly skilled operative for an elite private intelligence firm who survives an attempt on her life that might have been orchestrated by members of her own team. Once she returns to the firm, she must perform her secretive duties without knowing who to trust and who wants her dead." The Beeb commissioned eight episodes last January, and Cinemax just came aboard. No word on whether that means more episodes, but I doubt it. Like Strike Back, Nemesis will indulge in some cool location filming. Shooting kicks off this fall in Europe and North Africa under the direction of S.J. Clarkson, who previously collaborated with Kudos on episodes of Hustle, Whitechapel and Life On Mars. Oh, and of course the logline likens it to The Bourne Identity. That pretty much goes without saying with any new spy show or movie these days. Now here's a gratuitous image of Aussie George channeling Ursula Andress in a white Bond Girl bikini...
Sep 21, 2011
Tradecraft: Archer Meets CHAOS?
Tradecraft: Archer Meets CHAOS?
Deadline reports that ABC has bought a pilot from Sheldon Turner and Jennifer Klein's production company Vendetta called Safehouse. (Not to be confused with the movie Safe House—with a space—coming out next year, starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. That was written by David Guggenheim, who also penned a spy pilot that didn't make it to series this year, Exit Strategy.) This new TV Safehouse, written by Chris Hollier, is described by the trade blog as centering on "a young, brash CIA agent who joins a crew of agency professionals. The one catch? It’s headed by his long-estranged superspy mother." So... that sounds kind of... exactly... like CHAOS meets Archer, right? Maybe with a dab of Alias tossed in. Hopefully they've got more up their sleeve that they're not telling us yet. We shall see.
Deadline reports that ABC has bought a pilot from Sheldon Turner and Jennifer Klein's production company Vendetta called Safehouse. (Not to be confused with the movie Safe House—with a space—coming out next year, starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. That was written by David Guggenheim, who also penned a spy pilot that didn't make it to series this year, Exit Strategy.) This new TV Safehouse, written by Chris Hollier, is described by the trade blog as centering on "a young, brash CIA agent who joins a crew of agency professionals. The one catch? It’s headed by his long-estranged superspy mother." So... that sounds kind of... exactly... like CHAOS meets Archer, right? Maybe with a dab of Alias tossed in. Hopefully they've got more up their sleeve that they're not telling us yet. We shall see.
Aim High Debuts in October
New Spy DVDs Out This Week: Sand and Surf
I love these Rank Organization releases VCI have been quietly churning out this year. Following their Hot Enough For June (aka Agent 8 3/4) DVD and Blu-ray last moth, this week they give us the Region 1 DVD debut of the 1979 movie The Riddle of the Sands, adapted from Erskine Childers' 1903 novel of the same name that's widely considered the first modern spy novel. I've never seen the movie, though I did write a paper on the book back in 9th grade comparing it to modern techno-thrillers, particularly those by Tom Clancy. Childers' book fetishized military strategy and technology just as much as Clancy's novels, but the technology in question was mostly sailing-related. Page after page of nautical jargon and navigational minutiae can frankly get a little boring, but the actual plot, when it finally materializes, about a secret German plan to invade England, is cracking. Therefore, I imagine that a film, which isn't too likely ton include all that navigational stuff, could be quite fun, and I'm looking forward to finally seeing this one, which I've been curious about ever since reading the book. The movie stars Simon MacCorkindale (Counterstrike) and Michael York (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery) as the intrepid English adventurers who set out to thwart the Kaiser's plot, and Jenny Agutter (Spooks) as the girl, a requisite ingredient of the spy novel plot even at the genre's advent. The DVD is presented in the film's original 1.85:1 aspect ration, and includes a photo gallery. Retail is $19.99, though it's cheaper on Amazon.
Sep 20, 2011
Bad news/good news, Jason Statham fans. Remember that surprise Jason Statham movie I posted about last month that was supposed to open so soon after the well-publicized Killer Elite? Safe, the one where Statham plays "a former elite operative who must protect an adolescent girl from the bad guys?" (You know... that one!) I was so excited to learn we'd be getting Unexpected Statham hot on the heels of the Statham we've been expecting and eagerly anticipating for some time. Well, unfortunately Lionsgate seems to have reconsidered the "surprise Statham" strategy, and has moved Safe's release date back to early next year, giving them more time to promote the picture. Instead of next month, Safe will now open on March 2, 2012. Probably not a bad idea, actually, given that it would have been tailgating the September bow of Killer Elite so closely. Does the public really have a threshold for Statham? Lionsgate is taking the Safe bet (heh heh), but someone else evidently thinks not...
Warner Spy Bargains
Warner Brothers is running a TV On DVD blowout sale this week in which you can pick up season sets of Scarecrow and Mrs. King (review here), Chuck, Human Target and La Femme Nikita (as well as many non-spy shows) on DVD and Blu-ray for an average of 50-60% off. Among the many bargains, that puts Scarecrow and Mrs. King: The Complete First Season at just $16.49, several seasons of Chuck for as low as $19.19, and Human Target: The Complete First Season at just $19.19 on DVD or Blu-ray! And those are only a few examples. Shipping is free on orders of $60 or more. View the sale here.
Warner Brothers is running a TV On DVD blowout sale this week in which you can pick up season sets of Scarecrow and Mrs. King (review here), Chuck, Human Target and La Femme Nikita (as well as many non-spy shows) on DVD and Blu-ray for an average of 50-60% off. Among the many bargains, that puts Scarecrow and Mrs. King: The Complete First Season at just $16.49, several seasons of Chuck for as low as $19.19, and Human Target: The Complete First Season at just $19.19 on DVD or Blu-ray! And those are only a few examples. Shipping is free on orders of $60 or more. View the sale here.
Sep 19, 2011
DVD Review: Circles of Deceit: Sleeping Dogs (1995)
Sleeping Dogs is the second of the Circles of Deceit TV movies (recently released on DVD from Acorn) starring Dennis Waterman as an aging former SAS soldier turned MI5 operative John Neil. After the tragic events of the first movie, The Wolves are Howling (review here), Neil has retreated back into his private, alcohol-fuelled seclusion in Northumberland. But he did a good job on the Irish mission, and seems too good a man to let go without a struggle. So when his former colleague, played by Susan Jameson, is appointed Controller of MI5 (remember, this is ’95, the same year Judi Dench took over as M during Stella Rimington's tenure as the first publicly identified Director-General of MI5), she seeks him out and basically dares him to come out of retirement. Between SAS veterans who’ve seen combat together (in a highly unconvincing flashback set in Libya in 1983, made to look even sorrier in comparison to the combat scenes in the recent SAS drama Strike Back), that seems to work. And so, a little bit fitter than when we last saw him, with additional facial hair (which becomes him), and with a trendy new female boss instead of Derek Jacobi, John Neil is suddenly back in action and the one-off drama Circle of Deceit has, two years later, become the series Circles of Deceit.
Sleeping Dogs is much more of an espionage story than The Wolves Are Howling, which dealt with terrorism. Neil is sent to visit an aging former KGB colonel in Paris who wants to sell information. It’s his job to determine if the information is even worth buying four years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. “Since the fall of the Wall, it’s a buyer’s market,” he tells the would-be seller, Colonel Petrov. 
Petrov is played by portly spy veteran Leo McKern (The Prisoner, Hot Enough For June, Help!) with great joviality, very much along the lines of Oskar Homolka’s Colonel Stok in the Harry Palmer movies. McKern doesn’t even attempt a Russian accent (at least I don’t think he did…), but he’s one of those larger-than-life screen presences who doesn’t need to, like Sean Connery in The Hunt For Red October. Petrov gives Neil two names as a free sample demonstrating the quality of his decades-old intel. Unfortunately, he’s murdered shortly thereafter, giving the Controller plenty of reason to believe that the names are valuable. It’s up to Neil to figure out why.
One of them, Annie Shepherd (Frances Barber, a Reilly: Ace of Spies vet who now plays that eyepatch lady on Doctor Who), is a sexy, mature woman (who teaches adult education classes in German), so of course Neil ends up falling for her, even though she might be a Russian sleeper agent… or worse. The other, Bill Roper, is a wealthy software designer who drives a white Lotus Esprit Turbo.
The Lotus is involved in a car chase (well, a pursuit, anyway, as Neil follows him, but not at high speed). It doesn’t turn into a submarine, but submersible capabilities aside, any screen time for a white Lotus is sure to increase my opinion of a spy movie—not that it really needs increasing in this case.
Like The Wolves are Howling, Sleeping Dogs is solid spy entertainment. The production values don’t seem quite as high as they were on the first entry, but there’s still a large enough budget to destroy a few cars and deploy a few helicopters. (And a little of that stuff goes a lot farther in a more serious spy drama like this than it would in a Bond imitation.) There’s also some much more elaborate fighting than in the first movie, including a particularly violent struggle to the death between Roper and an assassin who might be working for the Russians or might be IRA.
Yes, the IRA is involved again (and still harboring a serious grudge against Neil for the blow he dealt them last time out), as are former KGB and Stasi agents, various freelance assassins and Paul Freeman (Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark), all of which adds up to a fun and intricate plot.
Freeman is so good as a slick, slimy, upper-crust MI5 official that I’m surprised he doesn’t get this kind of role more often! Neil makes an uneasy alliance with a sadistic ex-Stasi assassin and puts his trust in Annie (despite his boss’s belief that she’s a dangerous KGB sleeper) to pull all these threads together and stop an imminent threat to a rapidly approaching summit meeting.
Like The Wolves are Howling (again), Sleeping Dogs doesn’t really bring anything new to the genre, but it does a very good job with tropes tried and true. The plot is a sort of mash-up of various Len Deighton and Ken Follet elements (all good things), and Neil himself (well played by the likable Waterman) remains a compelling, if not terribly original, character.
Like James Bond, he’s ultimately a blunt instrument wielded by the state. And that seems to give him the edge over the radicals and zealots he comes up against. Unfortunately, it also makes him ideologically incompatible with his potential lover, who’s passionate about her political beliefs. “Petrov explained it to me,” Neil tells Annie, recalling a conversation he didn’t quite understand at the time but comes to over the course of the movie. “He said he never recruited anyone with political beliefs. Just people like me.”
“And what did he mean?” she inquires. “People like you?”
“Just… ones who can’t live any other way.”
Upcoming Spy DVDs: It Takes a Thief
Upcoming Spy DVDs: It Takes a Thief
Currently Half Price at Walmart!
We've known this one was in the works for a while now, and we've been very patiently awaiting the official announcement. And here it is! (Or... here it was months ago, anyway. This is a post that's sat half-finished since July. Sorry; that'll happen sometimes.) Just a little bit different from what we thought it would be. According to TV Shows On DVD (in a post dating back to Comic-Con weekend), eOne Entertainment will no longer be releasing The First Season, as we'd originally believed. They'll instead be releasing everything, in It Takes A Thief: The Complete Series! That will give you all three seasons (that's 66 episodes) of the 1968-70 ABC series starring Robert Wagner (The Pink Panther, Austin Powers) as master cat burglar Alexander Mundy, who's caught and pressed into service by SIA agent Noah Bain (Malachi Throne) to use his considerable skills for the U.S. Government as a thief-cum-spy. The great Fred Astaire played his dad (also a gentleman thief) on a handful of episodes during the third season, and Peter Sellers guest-starred on one in dual roles. Adolfo Celi turned up on another. We'd been expecting eOne to release Season One sometime this past summer, but obviously that didn't happen. Instead, they'll bring us It Takes A Thief: The Complete Series this fall! That includes all three seasons, totaling 66 episodes, in one convenient package. This release is major news for spy fans, especially coming hot on the heels of Warner Archives' recent The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. sets. Slowly but surely, all the classic American spy shows of the Sixties are finally materializing on DVD. Now all we need (unless I'm overlooking something big) are Amos Burke, Secret Agent and T.H.E. Cat...
eOne's 18-DVD set will be available in just over a month, on October 25. (Or maybe even sooner, on October 11, depending where you look. There are discrepancies.) And unlike April Dancer's sets, it won't be bare bones! Extras will include a retrospective featurette, new interviews with Robert Wagner and Glen A. Larson (who made his writing/producing debut on this series), English subtitles, a "collectible photo book" and, best of all, the feature film Magnificent Thief, an expanded version of the pilot episode released theatrically overseas and eventually on video here in America.
The downside to this feature-laden mega-set is the price tag. SRP will set you back a whopping $199.98. Luckily, Amazon's got it available for pre-order at $179.99, and, even better, Walmart's currently offering it for just $98.96, a whopping 51% off!
The sequel whose very existence baffles America (where the original made only a small fraction of its $160 million worldwide cume) has proven that there's still an appetite (overseas, anyway) for Rowan Atkinson's bumbling secret agent, Johnny English—even eight years later. Deadline reports that the belated spy spoof sequel Johnny English Reborn opened to an impressive $11.7 million in fifteen territories overseas (and opening at number one in 13 of them), making it the biggest opening of any Rowan Atkinson movie to date. The trade blog estimates that that opening puts the sequel "on track to do north of $150 million overseas." And it hasn't even opened in the UK yet, where Atkinson is huge. (That happens on October 7.) I'm glad to hear that, and looking forward to seeing the movie when it comes out in the US on October 28; I loved the first one. As spy spoofs go, it may not rank up there with the OSS 117 movies, but it's a far cry better than the Austin Powers sequels. And the makers of Johnny English clearly understood what made the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies work better than the makers of the Steve Martin attempts! The original Johnny English was a better Pink Panther movie than either of those. I hope the sequel lives up to it.
Download John Le Carré Audiobooks For Free!
Le Carré Audiobooks For Free!
According to John Le Carré's official website, The Guardian wants to give you the chance to hear seven of his best novels as audiobooks... for free! They'll be giving away one per day in conjunction with AudioGo to celebrate The Guardian and Observer Books Season. You haven't missed out on the first few, however; each book is available for a whole week. That means you can already download Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (a natural choice to begin with, since this whole promotion is tied in with the UK release of that film), Our Kind of Traitor (the author's latest) and The Honourable Schoolboy (the immediate follow-up to Tinker Tailor). Tinker Tailor and Schoolboy are read by Michael Jayston, who played Peter Guillam in the 1979 BBC miniseries of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy opposite Alec Guinness. (Jayston has also read a series of Ian Fleming audiobooks, and even played James Bond once in a radio adaptation of You Only Live Twice.)
So, in summary, The Guardian and AudioGo are giving away seven unabridged Le Carré audiobooks absolutely free! To take advantage of this promotion, you must enter a UK address. Go to the Guardian's website to claim your free spy classics by signing up for an AudioGo account and following the instructions. You do not need to enter any credit card information; as far as I can see, there are no catches. If you've never read Le Carré, this is a great opportunity to catch up with the greatest living practitioner of the literary spy genre. I often cite Tinker Tailor as not only my favorite spy novel (though Casino Royale by Le Carré's antithesis comes awfully close), but my favorite novel period. I highly recommend it! And if you have read Le Carré... well then, what are you waiting for? Audiobooks are a great way to revisit old favorites. Visit The Guardian now to download the first three, and be sure to check back daily as new books are added. I'll be curious to see which ones they choose.
Sep 18, 2011
DVD Review: Circles of Deceit: The Wolves Are Howling (1993)
The first of four British made-for-TV
movies starring Dennis Waterman (The Sweeny, New Tricks) as former SAS
operative turned MI5 agent John Neil is identified on screen only as “Circle of
Deceit.” I suspect it was originally filmed as a one-off, then did well enough
to justify a series at which point the title was apparently retroactively
changed to Circles of Deceit: The Wolves are Howling. That’s how it’s
identified on Acorn’s Circles of Deceit DVD set at any rate.
Director Geoffrey Sax (Fawlty
Towers, Framed, Spice World) apparently likes to set a challenge for himself,
so he begins his movie with flashbacks to a circus tragedy, an odd and outdated
movie cliché so overused that it was hilariously sent up in OSS 117: Lost in Rio. Yet here Sax more or less pulls it off. Despite that beginning, he
delivers a really good drama. Such a beginning, in fact, proves entirely
appropriate, because Circles of Deceit: The Wolves Are Howling trades on clichés of this nature, yet
handles them all so well that it really doesn’t matter. This movie doesn’t
bring anything new to the spy genre, the ex-soldier genre or the IRA
infiltrator genre, but it makes an incredibly solid example of all three. And,
personally, sometimes that’s exactly what I want out of a genre movie.
John Neil is an SAS Falklands
vet who lost his wife and child two years earlier in an IRA bombing at a circus in
Germany. This event provoked his retirement, and he’s been a drunken recluse
ever since. Then an amazing coincidence occurs. (The plot hinges on a couple
such coincidences, but gets away with it.) An Irishman named Jackie O’Connell
dies in a car accident. He was born in Belfast, but has lived in London for the
last twenty years or more. And he bears an uncanny resemblance to John Neil. This
is too good an opportunity for MI5 spymaster Randal (Derek Jacobi, playing a
typically sleazy bureaucrat) to pass up. While O’Connell was not himself a
terrorist, he has an estranged brother in Belfast who’s a priest in a parish
dominated by IRA soldiers. It’s a rare and perfect chance to place an
infiltrator in their midst. With a little prodding from Randal (who isn’t above
playing on Neil’s past and hatred for the IRA because of what they did to his
family), Neil is lured out of retirement and given a crash course in the
Belfast neighborhood he’ll claim to be from and its mostly nefarious
denizens.
Foremost among them is Liam
McAuley, a high-ranking IRA mastermind and patriarch of a whole IRA family.
Liam is played by stalwart ITC veteran Peter Vaughan (Hammerhead, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Codename: Kyril, various Avengers, etc.). His accent sometimes fails him, but
overall Vaughan delivers his usual screen-filling, utterly captivating
performance.
Neil makes his entrance at the
wake for one of McAuley’s sons, freshly killed by British soldiers. He introduces
himself as Jackie to Jackie’s brother, the parish priest, Father Fergal.
Fergal gives him a few tests which Neil’s cramming enables him to pass and then
readily accepts him as his long-lost brother. Fergal is a sympathetic character,
well played by Ian McElhinney. He wants to see the best in everyone and he clearly
wants to believe that Jackie has returned, so he’s easily fooled. Naturally,
Neil feels guilty for taking advantage of the optimistic man of God, and he may
even find a real kinship of sorts with him. But Fergal does not approve of the
McAuleys or their methods, and therefore loses faith in the man he believes is
Jackie when he starts (per orders) associating with them. One can only imagine
how betrayed he’ll feel when it comes out that Neil isn’t Jackie at all, but a
British soldier. (A patriotic Irishman to the core, Fergal has even less love
for the British than he does for the IRA.) Unfortunately (or perhaps
fortunately, as it spares the audience some excruciating discomfort), we never
get to see his reaction to that revelation, as the story has moved in other
directions by then.
Through Fergal, Neil is
introduced to the McAuley clan and even accepted. When Neil hits it off with
Liam’s pacifist daughter, Eilish (who shares her family’s cause, but not their
methods), Randal orders him to use that connection to get close to Liam.
Naturally, Neil develops strong feelings of his own for the passionate Eilish
(a very appealing Clare Higgins). He starts to fall in love with her, a turn of
events which regular viewers of this sort of drama will know can only end in
tragedy. Yes, The Wolves Are Howling is ticking formulaic boxes, but it’s ticking
them well.
Waterman is quite good as John
Neil, imbuing his every action with enough of a haunted past that we really
didn’t need the circus flashbacks. The score by Tim Souster is particularly
effective, and melds well with the performances, the settings and the direction
to create a suitably gloomy Irish feel. It’s the atmosphere more than the story
that stuck with me after watching this, and it’s largely that same atmosphere
that makes it feel more like a one-off drama than an entry in (or beginning to)
a series.
There is a budget here, enough
for convincing location filming and some small-scale military action including
helicopters. But that doesn’t make The Wolves Are Howling an action movie. I was
expecting action just based on that ex-SAS premise, since action is usually
what that premise delivers. Neil himself only does one little bit of fighting,
but in true SAS form, it’s a single, lighting-quick surprise move that kills in
one blow. No, The Wolves Are Howling is a drama—and a very good one. The story beats
aren’t new and the characters are familiar. But the performances are engaging,
as is the overall bleak tenor of the piece. (It kind of reminded me of the
Patrick McGoohan/Lee Van Cleef IRA drama The Hard Way, another deliberately paced
drama whose identity comes from its tone rather than its familiar one-last-job
assassin plot.)
Undercover dramas of this nature
are inherently heartbreaking, because you know all along that the hero must
betray all of the relationships he forms. And you can’t help feeling sorry for
some of the people he’ll betray. While the IRA are clearly bad guys here, this
telefilm doesn’t really take sides in the conflict. Instead, it questions the
methods of both parties. And ultimately it lays the blame at the feet of the
English for perpetuating the circle of violence—somewhat surprisingly for
something made for British television. Yet just as Circles of Deceit: The Wolves Are Howling isn’t an action
movie, it’s also not a political movie. It’s a character-driven drama, and one
I found very compelling. While this movie works perfectly well as a standalone, I'm looking forward to seeing where this series—and the character of John Neil—goes from here.Sep 17, 2011
Upcoming Spy DVDs: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (1966)
The ever-alert Johann on the Eurospy Forum sounds the alarm that Wild East (primarily a Spaghetti Western distributor) has another Eurospy movie on among its upcoming releases: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a very silly spoof that turns up as the second half of a Giuliano Gemma double feature with the Spaghetti Western Alive or Preferably Dead called Spies, Fast Guns, and the Spaghetti West. Gemma is better known for his Spaghetti Westerns. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a very silly Italian spy spoof. Your enjoyment of it will depend on your tolerance for that uniquely Italian brand of silliness, but it's very Sixties and fun to look at throughout, at least, so genre aficionados will likely find something to enjoy. Of course so few Eurospy movies get official releases that most fans (like me) will jump at anything. Especially when it promises a 16x9 anamorphic widescreen transfer! According to Wild East, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang will be available in English for the first time ever on this release. (Officially, anyway.) Spies, Fast Guns and the Spaghetti West will also feature the films' theatrical trailers and will be available on November 8, 2011, retailing for just $19.95 through the Wild East website.
UPDATE: The "sold out" message was a glitch on Wild East's website. This release is not sold out, and is available to pre-order!
Upcoming Spy DVDs: More Mission: Impossible!
Yes! I'm so happy to report this news! According to TV Shows On DVD, Paramount will release the first season of the late Eighties Mission: Impossible revival series this fall, just in time for the new Tom Cruise movie to hit theaters. I was really hoping that the only reason for the delay between Mission: Impossible - The Final TV Season (the seventh and last season of the original Sixties and Seventies series) and Mission: Impossible - The '88 TV Season (as they're calling this release) was because Paramount was waiting to time the release with the next movie. And I'm so glad that was the case! So here it comes, just in time to quell the burning need for more Mission: Impossible that's been percolating in my heart since watching the original show's finale. (Prilosec simply doesn't do the trick for that burn. And that reminds me! I really need to post that Season 7 review I wrote more than a year ago...) This release also holds a certain nostalgic value for me, as it was through the 1988-90 revival that I was first introduced to Jim Phelps and the IMF. Yes, the series was created solely as a way for ABC to get around a writer's strike by remaking existing scripts from the original series and shooting cheaply in Australia, and no, the episodes aren't nearly as good as they were the first time around. (Fortunately they didn't have to stick to episode remakes for very long, as the strike ended.) But it's still got that unforgettable Lalo Schifrin theme music (along with surprisingly good incidental music by John E. Davis), it's still got that distinctive burning fuse, and, most importantly... it's still got Peter Graves. And any Mission: Impossible with Peter Graves (even old Peter Graves) is infinitely preferable to Mission: Impossible without Peter Graves. (Oh, don't look so hurt, Steven Hill. My slight is directed more in the direction of Jon Voight and Tom Cruise.)
Graves reprises his role as Jim Phelps, who the studio's copy very accurately describes as "the brilliant and charismatic leader of the Impossible Missions Force." Emerging from retirement to avenge the death of his friend and protege, Phelps puts together a new IMF team including Grant Collier, the son of original IMF agent Barney Collier, played by Phil Morris, the real-life son of original series star Greg Morris. (The elder Morris also turns up as Barney in one episode this season, and another two the following season.) It also includes several rough corollaries for the original team members, like a master of disguise, a tough guy (the term "strongman" wasn't so much in favor by the late Eighties) and a lady. (The lady actually changed part way through the series, and in a fairly spectacular fashion.) Besides Greg Morris, other notable guest stars included Lynda Day George, reprising her role as Casey from the later years of the original series, two-time Bond Girl Maud Adams, and John de Lancie.
Mission: Impossible - The '88 TV Season, a 5-disc set (in different, slimmer packaging from the original series seasons), will be available on November 29th, retailing for just $39.98. It can already be pre-ordered for considerably less than that, however, on Amazon. I, for one, can't wait!
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Sixth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Sixth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Fourth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Third TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Second TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The First TV Season here.
Sep 15, 2011
Movie Review: The Debt (2011)
Movie Review: The Debt (2011)
Note: The Debt contains twists and turns which I won’t spoil here, but might inadvertently hint at in the course of discussing the film.
John Madden’s The Debt has all sorts of classic spy elements in place, including a partial Cold War Berlin setting complete with Wall-crossing and escapes, dangerous undercover assignments, an apparently untrustworthy boss, young agents in love, gadgets, a gunfight and even a Mission: Impossible-style kidnapping plot. It’s also got a cast of excellent older actors (Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Ciarán Hinds, Jesper Christensen) and very good younger ones (Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington, Marton Csokas), a talented director and a screenplay pedigree including the writers of the fantastic X-Men: First Class (review here) and the hopefully fantastic Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It’s got all the makings of a top-shelf spy movie. But, unfortunately, the whole is somewhat less than the sum of its parts. In Madden’s hands, these elements mostly just sort of sit there on the screen. By breaking up the characters between two actors playing them at different ages, they all end up underdeveloped. And the script crumbles under its own cleverness, telegraphing its surprises with see-through gimmicks and a necessarily awkward structure. Perhaps most of all, The Debt is done in by one particularly perplexing bit of casting.
Chastain, Worthington and Csokas play a team of Mossad agents tasked, in 1966, with identifying a Nazi war criminal named Vogel (Christensen) believed to be living under an assumed name and practicing as a gynecologist in East Berlin. Mirren, Hinds and Wilkinson, respectively, play the same characters in 1997, still dealing with the repercussions of their mission three decades later. That’s kind of confusing, because Hinds looks like the spitting image of an older Csokas, and it’s easy to see Worthington growing into Wilkinson. Yet those obvious pairings are reversed. I was aware of who was supposed to be who, yet still couldn’t help fixating on the miscasting because it was so glaring. Others in the group I saw it with weren’t aware (because it’s not made very clear), and went through most of the movie assuming that Wilkinson was Worthington and vice versa. It’s an easy mistake, and seems to have tripped up other reviewers as well, including Roger Ebert. I just can’t fathom why they were cast as they were. Mirren, at least, is very obviously Chastain, because she is the only woman and none of those plot twists involve sex change operations.
In the Sixties storyline, Chastain is the rookie agent on her first mission, Worthington is the driven but untested idealist and Csokas is the cynical team leader. Christensen, who played the villainous Mr. White in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, gives a very impressive performance here as the monster hiding in plain sight. The movie’s most nail-biting scenes find Chastain submitting to his care, exposing herself (quite literally) to the enemy by sticking her feet in those stirrups so she can covertly snap his picture with a necklace camera in order to confirm that he is who she’s already pretty certain he is. These scenes are squirm-inducingly suspenseful.
The agents’ kidnapping of Vogel is very exciting, and Csokas’ plan incorporates several of Jim Phelps’ favorite ingredients for such a caper, including a drug that simulates the effects of a heart attack and a fake ambulance. (I’m certain that there was at least one episode—and probably more—of Mission: Impossible that actually featured the exact same scenario to extract someone from an Eastern Bloc city.) This leads to what should be an equally exciting attempt to whisk the captive across the Berlin Wall involving trains, cut fences and meticulous timing. Even in the individual sequences, the elements are all there, but something doesn’t quite click and they don’t generate the spine-tingling thrills I normally associate with Wall-crossings. 
The fact that the characters are spread out between two actors means that they’re not in the hands of any single performer long enough to adequately develop them. I didn’t get any sense of continuity from one age to the next, so these people really felt like totally different characters from each other. Mirren gets the most to work with in the modern setting, and therefore succeeds best at portraying character development, but none of her present-day actions satisfactorily explain Chastain’s muddled motivations for falling in love with either—let alone both—of her teammates in the Sixties.
The Debt is not a bad movie at all. It’s slick-looking and boasts moments of genuine suspense, like the aforementioned doctor’s appointments or scenes in which Christensen’s Hannibal Lecter-like Vogel taunts the agents, honing in on their individual insecurities. However it’s not an especially good movie either. While it succeeds in those moments, it fails to generate similar suspense or necessary emotions in other crucial scenes. It just kind of sits there. And when a movie with Cold War-era Wall-crossings, which are like catnip to this spy fan, just sits there, I can’t help but feel slightly disappointed. Perhaps my expectations were set too high based on the cast and writers. I’ll just have to hope that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy delivers the intelligent, adult Cold War thrills I was hoping for from The Debt.
New Spy(ish) BDs Out This Week: The 10th Victim (1965)
Elio Petri's The 10th Victim isn't really a spy movie, but it does exude the same awesome Sixties spy style that characterized Modesty Blaise, Danger: Diabolik, Casino Royale, The Prisoner and later seasons of The Avengers. Which is to say, it's awesome. If you like Sixties spies, you will like The 10th Victim. It even stars the first Bond Girl, the luscious Ursula Andress, as a sexy assassin with ballistic bosoms. Yes, her character here was the inspiration for the fembots in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. The sharp, satirical plot of the movie is more The Running Man than Goldfinger, but The 10th Victim isn't really about plot as much as it is about style. And what style! The movie boasts all the fashions and set design that we like to believe characterized the decade, but in fact were probably as removed from day-to-day living as runway looks are today. But I don't want the real Sixties. I want this Sixties! And now I can live it in high-definition for the first time, as Blue Underground have released the film on Blu-ray this week! Special features (some previously included on the DVD, some new to this release) include a 2006 feature-length documentary about star Marcello Mastroianni entitled Marcello: A Sweet Life, the US trailer, the Italian trailer, a Mastroianni still gallery and, perhaps most excitingly of all, a poster and still gallery featuring images from the collection of fellow COBRAS blogger Jason Whiton, curator of the essential Sixties spy lifestyle blog Spy Vibe! Jason is even running a contest right now to win this Blu-ray. Head on over and enter to win. Otherwise, retail will set you back $29.98, though of course the disc is cheaper on Amazon and other online retailers.
Sep 14, 2011
Tinker Tailor Sequel Talk
At the UK premiere of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (video on IMDb), star Gary Oldman (George Smiley) and author John Le Carré discussed the possibility of another Smiley movie. "If this was a success, if it enjoys some commercial success, then I think that they may make another one, and I would definitely come back as Smiley, yeah," Oldman told a reporter on the red carpet. "It's Smiley's People, isn't it?" I'm not sure if that last remark was actually intended as an indication that they would skip The Honourable Schoolboy and go straight to the third novel in the so-called "Karla Trilogy," as the BBC did with Alec Guinness, or if he was merely pointing out that any follow-up would definitely involve Smiley, whose name is in the title of the third book. Personally, I very much hope that they don't skip The Honourable Schoolboy this time around, as it's a wonderful book that I'd very much like to see filmed. It's not as much Smiley's story as the other two, but with all the trimming that will be necessary to turn the massive tome into a two-hour(ish) movie, that could easily be changed. At any rate, this is the first time I've heard anyone associated with the production speculate about a sequel.
After referring to Oldman as "a very happy bunny" (an expression I found amusing enough to bear repeating), Le Carré himself added to the sequel speculation. "I think it's an open secret; it's a twinkle in the eye of Working Title, and it's certainly a twinkle in Gary's eye, but it's got to be good next time around. It can't just be... Tinker Tailor 2." While that kind of sounds like a slight in print, he definitely doesn't seem to intend it as one in person. But his phrasing is curious. Is he opening the door for an original follow-up not based on one of his books... or merely electing not to mention any specific titles? As to this particular adaptation, he says, "I wanted the film of the film and not the film of the book, and that's exactly what we got." I think that's an excellent way to look at it, and despite my desire for fidelity to the source material, I know that I won't be going into the movie expecting it to directly translate a text that couldn't even be entirely contained within a 7-hour miniseries!
Oldman also discussed the character qualities that first attracted him to Smiley. "You tend to get a little typecast and I play these characters that express their emotions... physically. And so, it was lovely to sort of dial it... really, make it an internal thing and sort of dial it all back. That was one of the attractions of doing it."
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy opens this Friday in the UK, but American audiences won't get to see it until December.
Sep 13, 2011
Tradecraft: Tom Clancy Developing Cable Spy Drama
Tradecraft: Tom Clancy Developing Cable Spy Drama
Variety and The Hollywood Reporter both report that Tom Clancy is developing—or at least lending his name to—a new spy drama for cable network TNT. According to Variety, Tom Clancy's Homeland Security "pits a select team of domestic intelligence operatives against all enemies, both within the country and outside." If The Hollywood Reporter's wording is to be believed, the bestselling author of the Jack Ryan novels will actually co-write the pilot as well as lend his name to it—which some fans believe is more than he did on his latest novel. He'll script the pilot along with Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman, Lost) and and Chris George. Clancy and Grillo-Marxuach will also executive produce along with Mike Ovitz. While many of Clancy's books have been turned into movies (and another Jack Ryan film, not based on a book, is still in active—if seemingly interminable—development), the author's only previous forays into television were the 1995 miniseries Op Center and a 1999 miniseries starring Scott Bakula based on the first book in the Net Force series that Clancy created.
Variety and The Hollywood Reporter both report that Tom Clancy is developing—or at least lending his name to—a new spy drama for cable network TNT. According to Variety, Tom Clancy's Homeland Security "pits a select team of domestic intelligence operatives against all enemies, both within the country and outside." If The Hollywood Reporter's wording is to be believed, the bestselling author of the Jack Ryan novels will actually co-write the pilot as well as lend his name to it—which some fans believe is more than he did on his latest novel. He'll script the pilot along with Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman, Lost) and and Chris George. Clancy and Grillo-Marxuach will also executive produce along with Mike Ovitz. While many of Clancy's books have been turned into movies (and another Jack Ryan film, not based on a book, is still in active—if seemingly interminable—development), the author's only previous forays into television were the 1995 miniseries Op Center and a 1999 miniseries starring Scott Bakula based on the first book in the Net Force series that Clancy created.
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