Protege problems---Pierce Brosnan as an ex-CIA operative and Luke Bracey as his protege turned rival in The November Man
I'm almost always happy to have seen a film no matter how horrible it is. Despite some insanely harsh reviews that I write, 99.9% of the films I bash I was more than happy to sit through no matter how much I was bored or angry at the film. Rarely do I walk out of a film wishing I had never sat through it and having words such as "off putting" and "grossly offensive" running through my head. The November Man does the trick of making me wish I had never seen it. On top of the words I have just mentioned above, there are a few more choice words I had for this garbage that I choose not to write in this review for reasons of wanting to stay professional. I hesitate to even call this film making. It's more like bits and pieces of half baked ideas that were lazily cobbled together. This is especially disappointing to report since director Roger Donaldson (who did the fantastic films No Way Out, Cadillac Man, The Getaway and The Bank Job as well as many other very solid ones) and stars Pierce Brosnan and Olga Kurylenko should know better.
The film stars Brosnan as Devereaux, a CIA operative who gets out of the game but gets called in for one last job. His protege, Mason (Luke Bracey) is now his rival after one of those cliche botched job openings. All the while, Russians are evil or something. Honestly, I don't remember any of this plot because I successfully forgot about this film until I wrote this review and also because the plot is overly convoluted for being so stupid.
Co-writers Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek (taken from a work by Bill Granger, which is surely better than this film because getting stabbed repeatedly would be much more pleasurable than sitting through this) should be ashamed of themselves for being involved in this insult of a film. Everyone should be. This is a disgusting, mean spirited film that insults the audience and treats them as if they just want to see gruesome violence. I'm not that squeamish when it comes to gruesome violence. However, if I am going to watch this level of gruesomeness, I need some reason to. Donaldson should have taken a look at directors like Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie, who use violence not simply to be put into a film but to progress the story and support their ideas.
The performances are terrible down the line. Brosnan and Kurylenko, talented as they are, obviously don't care and just sleepwalk through the entire film. Bracey isn't acting so much as impersonating a mannequin. His performance mainly consists of saying one word every 15 minutes or so in a really boring fashion. There's even a subplot involving a woman who lives in the apartment across the hall from him. Her cat keeps going into his apartment and soon she falls for him. Why the cat or the woman would ever want to spend a second with a guy so devoid of life is beyond comprehension. Every beat, twist, plot device and anything else in this film can be seen coming from miles away. In other words, just look at the poster for five seconds and you've got the entire film. This will be beneficial because looking at the poster would be significantly more exciting and less time consuming.
The November Man is a gross, insulting bore in all the most jaw dropping ways possible. This is not a film so much as a test to see how pathetic a film can get before people start walking out in droves. I stayed for the whole thing and want the two hours of my life back desperately. I implore my readers since I appreciate all of you---don't make the same mistake.
(0 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for strong violence including a sexual assault, language, sexuality/nudity and brief drug use)
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