The November Man

Pierce Brosnan stars as Peter Devereaux – a top notch CIA assassin and operative who walked away from the business when a job went wrong in 2008. He blames his former protégé, Mason (the extremely non-descript Luke Bracey), but the young kid has moved up the ladder anyway over the past few years.

Of course, because this is a movie, just when he thinks he is out, they pull him back in! Devereaux’s former handler and buddy, Hanley (Bill Smitrovich), needs him to head into Russia and save someone very close to the two of them.

Of course, that goes even worse than the last mission, and Mason is the cause of it, which makes Devereaux very very angry.

Of course, NOW IT’S PERSONAL!!!!!!

Of course, The November Man is not very good.

Granted, you will see many movies much worse than this (many of which are set in a dystopian future featuring angst-filled teens with hip haircuts and based on a popular young adult novel), but that doesn’t make this experience one of your most treasured experiences of Summer 2014.

Writers Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek (based on a book by Bill Granger) are trying to incorporate many twists and turns that neither complicate the movie nor make it more thrilling and interesting. It’s all mush.

Under the direction of Roger Donaldson, The November Man is a very by the numbers movie going through the motions with a simple conspiracy tossed in to explain why everyone is blowing stuff up and shooting at each other, but this movie is all about blowing stuff up and people shooting at each other, and not much else. Even that’s not very exciting.

Much of this is because Brosnan and Bracey have no chemistry together. What is supposed to be a series of crackling verbal showdowns displaying each man’s abilities and feelings for each other comes off as forced, boring, lifeless dialogue spoken by guys trying to look tough and sound tough with only one of them succeeding (the other one is Luke Bracey).

Brosnan does his best as he continues to get the roles passed on by Liam Neeson, and he still has great command of the screen (while looking so cool and sleek in a suit), but Bracey is an empty vessel who could be replaced by any of 1000 out of work actors walking the streets of Hollywood. His hair cut shows more range.

The November Man severely drags towards the end after the big shocks (and that’s a relative term) have been revealed.

The November Man is rated R for strong violence including a sexual assault, language, sexuality/nudity and brief drug use.