Movie Breakdown: The Courier

Pre-Screening Stance:

I’m not at all familiar with director Dominic Cooke, but I like Benedict Cumberbatch and some of the other cast members in The Courier, such as Jessie Buckley and Rachel Brosnahan. Also, Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky’s real-life actions during the Cold War were wild and should make for a good movie.

Post-Screening Ramble:

The Courier is a pretty solid film. It’s centered around two actual men – Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) – in the 60s. The former was a businessman who got recruited by MI6 (and also somewhat by the CIA) to occasionally meet with the latter, a member of the Soviet Union who bravely moved to divulge information on his country’s doings in Cuba because he feared nuclear war. The pair would ultimately play a big part in the Cuban Missile Crisis, though The Courier is only partly geared towards that and is instead more about Wynne and Penkovsky’s relationship. For every tense, spy-inspired scene with a whispered convo or a quick note being passed to someone else, there’s two that features the strengthening of a relationship that would ultimately last through impossible circumstances. Espionage movies – whether they’re fiction or non-fiction – tend to be somewhat cold, so I appreciate that The Courier managed to bring some warmth and compassion to its high-stakes tale.

I think The Courier is worth your time. You should check it out when hits theaters this Friday, March 19.

One Last Thought:

I mentioned this the last time I saw her in something, but I’m still stuck on it – Rachel Brosnahan looks like a clone of Evan Rachel Wood. It boggles my mind.

One More Last Thought:

There’s a scene here where you see Benedict Cumberbatch’s character in a sickly state, and let me just say this, that’s not a man who should ever be really thin. He looks like something you’d see in one of those creepy claymation videos from Tool.