Review: The November Man
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
City Paper grade: C-
If someone were to make a mixtape of espionage thrillers’ greatest hits, it would look something like The November Man. You could rattle off the genre’s best-loved moments like the announcer in a K-Tel commercial, and they’re all here: the retired spy dragged back into the game, the student turned against his teacher, the emotionless female assassin, chases through restaurant kitchens and fruit markets, even the crash into a truck carrying plate-glass windows and the rendezvous in a strip club. Under Roger Donaldson’s uninventive direction, though, they all tend to feel like second-rate cover versions. Based on There Are No Spies, one in a series of novels by Bill Granger featuring a CIA agent named Devereaux, The November Man has been a pet project of Pierce Brosnan’s for years. It’s a chance to see the actor flex his old Bond muscles in a Bourne setting, but this territory has been explored by too many others for his usual charm to make the landscape seem unfamiliar. Whatever Brosnan saw in the source material, there’s nothing fresh to be found on screen, with every twist telegraphed by not only the leaden script, but also by the sheer familiarity of the story.
