Pierce Brosnan is one of those actors that people either love or they hate and his films often fall into that same category. That’s why in this week’s Worth it? I take a look at his most recent outing The November Man and help you decide whether or not it’s worth checking out.
In this film Brosnan stars as retired CIA agent Devereux who is called back into the game by his old friend for one last job. I know right? Such an original premise, what could go wrong? Well when the job is to get the love of your life out of Moscow with sensitive intel about the next president of Russia plenty. When the op goes bad and his lady love dies in his arms giving him a single name Pierce Brosnan is forced to ask himself some serious questions. Like Who can I trust?, What’s in a Name? , and Where did my Career go wrong?
I swear this was not my intention but for the second Worth It? in a row we find ourselves with cliché ridden drivel that fails to be anything more than mediocre. The thing is spy thrillers to trend towards the formulaic: One last job, something goes wrong, partner/team/lover dies, must protect beautiful woman who knows things about powerful men while going up against my crooked bosses and/or my naïve protégé.
And that’s okay if they’re well executed, have great/original action sequences, or have some clever cat and mouse moments. Unfortunately The November Man really has none of those. In fact the only genuine surprises I got out of the movie were when the characters actions were so obvious that I convinced myself that there had to be a twist but alas there was none.
My other problem with this movie was that it was more than a little misogynistic. Every woman in this movie is used as a victim/plot device/ someone to be saved at one point or another (sometimes all three) and really are given nothing else to do.
So is The November Man worth it? Not really, unless you’re on an international flight and you’ve already burned through a couple of other movies. Then this might help get you to the tarmac. Otherwise I’d say skip it and just got watch Ronin or Clear and Present Danger for the fiftieth time.