The Courier

[4 stars] [IMDB Link]

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

[Consumer note: the Amazon link above goes to a "playback region 2" DVD. Apparently, there's no US-playable disc currently available.]

A pretty good Cold War spy thriller, based on true events. It's the dark days of the conflict, early 1960s. MI6 and the CIA are trying to get reliable information out of the USSR, and they seize upon the offer of Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU higher-up dismayed by the bellicose rhetoric and provocative actions of hard-liners like Khrushchev. But making contact with Penkovsky could be dicey, they need someone who's not an obvious spy. So they hit on Greville Wynne, a British businessman with no obvious MI6 attachments.

Greville is incredulous and reluctant, but after some soul-searching, accepts this new role, acting as (see the title) a courier for the information Penkovsky wants to smuggle out to the West. But it's a dangerous game, and the wrong people are getting suspicious, moles on our side are reporting back to the USSR about the intel Penkovsky is providing. So things don't go smoothly.

Greville is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who surprisingly did not get an Oscar nomination for his work here. (Why don't they just auto-nominate him for every year in which he's in a picture.)

I kept looking for any Cold War revisionism here. Only one bit, where the deployment of US missiles in Turkey is mentioned as a counter to the discovery of Russian missiles in Cuba. Other than that, though, it's pretty blunt about (accurately) portraying the USSR commies as brutal thugs.


Last Modified 2024-01-17 3:56 PM EDT