Dominic Cooke

(Amazon Streaming, November 2021) On the sliding scale of realism-to-James Bond, spy thriller The Courier deliberately goes for the more realistic approach, oftentimes ever more so than even John Le Carré. (It’s a common misconception that Le Carré is realistic, but he’s not: he’s more restrained in his approach, but his stories are just as wild from a conceptual and plotting standpoint.)  It follows the adventures of a British businessman in the early 1960s who is asked by western intelligence services to make contact with a Soviet double agent and report back. His cover is, naturally, doing business in the USSR and facilitating Soviet business in the West. It’s all well and good until things go badly, and it’s the mark of this fact-based tale’s realism that there’s no real heroic climax here — he gets, at best, to be released from prison after a lengthy stay, while his Soviet friend is not so lucky. It does make for a sobering experience, and Benedict Cumberbatch is able to lead the film in its low-key approach to a true story. Handsomely executed by director Dominic Cooke but not overly concerned with pacing, The Courier does make for an absorbing, more mature spy story than usual. (It’s even more restrained and intentionally dull than Bridge of Spies.)  It will do best with adult audiences looking for something less ludicrous than the norm.