In Lausanne, Switzerland, the retired CIA agent Peter Devereaux is visited by his former chief John Hanley that convinces him to extract the agent Natalia Ulanova from Russia. Natalia is the assistant of the Russian candidate for President Arkady Federov and has collected evidences of war crimes committed by the candidate during the Chechen War and requested Peter to help her. However, during the operation, CIA chief Perry Weinstein believes that Natalie has been captured by the Russians and orders agent David Mason to kill her. Natalie gives photos and the name Mira Filipova to Peter before dying and the agent informs Hanley. Peter kills the CIA agents, but when he sees Mason, he spares the agent that was trained by him. When Mason meets Weinstein, he learns that Peter and Natalie had a love affair in the past and the agent is assigned to kill him. Peter heads to Belgrade where he saves the social worker Alice Fournier that might know where Mira is from Federov's assassin Alexa and from Mason. Soon Peter learns dirty secrets about Arkady Federov and the CIA and has to flee with Alice to save their lives and expose the crimes to the world. Peter Devereaux is a former CIA agent who is asked by the man he worked for to extract a woman who is in Russia and is presently close to a man running for President, who is believed to have committed crimes during the Chechen war. She can give them the name of someone who can prove it. His friend says that she will only come to him. So he goes and she gets the info and tries to get out but the man finds out and tries to stop her. Pierce Bronson obviously capitalizing on his celebrity and 007 roles in Ian Fleming's James Bond films. The first few minutes establish the vulgarity of Bronsons character. Clichés are abundant. Movie is predictable. If your a spy/action/assassin movie buff,pay attention, and you will see obvious elements, ideas, and situations from other films. The movie provides spy movie action, but without the substance and originality of other movies in this genre. <br/><br/>For all the Pierce Bronson fans, you won't be disappointed. Bronsons style of acting comes across loud and clear. <br/><br/>The movie provides guns, explosions and chase scenes along with mild intrigue, and a predictable plot.<br/><br/>In my opinion, this film should have gone straight to DVD. Save your money, and wait for it to come to a DVD kiosk near you. You won't have to wait long. November Man seemed as if it was going to be an awesome throwback to the Pierce Brosnan days of Bond, his Never Say Never Again almost. Unfortunately, it doesn't amount to anything but an incoherent mess of a film. The storyline is very typical, almost so typical that you keep wondering if you missed something or it is merely just that brainless and redundant? The answer is yes, The November Man is a film that takes what could have been a grand throwback to the espionage thrillers of yester-year and turns it into a brainless big budget fan film hybrid cross between John Woo and a 90s James Bond. The director, Roger Donaldson feels sluggish here. It feels as if he knew the film was bad and tried everything to get it to work but it, unfortunately never comes to flotation. The editing is sloppy, the action sequence get considerably ridiculous especially with its use of slow motion, which adds another corny and campy vibe to an already far-fetched story that takes itself way too seriously. Despite these faults, The November Man does showcase a very good performance from Pierce Brosnan. While the story does lack an intellectual plot to make this intriguing enough, Pierce Brosnan carries the film on his shoulders and moves full speed ahead even when the film doesn't seem to be going much of anywhere. As far as an action film is concerned, the shootouts are somewhat decent in certain scenes but become increasingly annoying as they all start to blend together and feel boring. The violence in this film is actually something that did take me by surprise considering how brutal some of the scenes are. However, while some of the violence is shocking at first, Roger Donaldson decides to capitalize on the gore by throwing slow motion blood, bullets and brains to the mix for the final shootout, absolutely killing any shot of redemption for the film at that point. It may look cool but it contributes nothing at all except something for gore hounds to marvel at, maybe. Overall, The November Man features vintage Pierce Brosnan echoing back to Live Wire and Goldeneye but the film suffers from a narrative stand point and tries to cover up its lacking story with graphic violence and loud music. This one resembles a James Bond film about as much as Belgrade resembles London.
Aleanfridr replied
355 weeks ago