Critic’s rating: 1.5 stars

Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Olga Kurylenko, Luke Bracey, Bill Smitrovich, Mediha Musliovic, Lazar Ristovski,Will Patton,Caterina Reminy Scorsone, Patrick Kennedy, Milutin milosevic,  Milos Timotijevic, Nina Jankovic,  Roger Donaldson.
 
Direction: Roger Donaldson

Produced: Beau St. Clair,Pierce Brosnan, Sriram Das,

Genre: Action

Duration: 1 hour 48 minutes

Pierce Brosnan is completely at home, playing an armed and suited spy in a spy thriller. The former Bond may have aged but he is timeless. Unfortunately for him, the espionage drama is not. November Man is fraught with clichés and predictability that unravels the film even as our leading man’s charm struggles to hold it together.

Former CIA agent Peter Devereaux (Brosnan) is leading a life of idyllic retirement in Lausanne, Switzerland five years after a failed mission in Montenegro where his protégé David Mason (Luke Bracey) blunders in a mission to protect the public. He is brought out of hibernation (‘reactivated’ in spy parlance) by Hanley (Bill Smitrovich), who wants him to lure Russian bureaucrat Natalia (Mediha Musliovic) for a key tip-off. It leads him to Alice Fournier (Olga Kurylenko), who holds the key to trigger out an all-out counter-intelligence crisis.

November Man has a story that was flawed at the drawing board itself. It has slick execution but not enough clever lines or a fleshed-out supporting cast to help prop up a premise afloat purely on Brosnan’s refined charm. The action hops from Moscow to Serbia but other than a street gunfight or two, the proceedings are relegated to the indoors. Sure, there are the perfunctory explosions, car chases and loved ones being used as leverage. But how much more of that does one want to see?

There is a lot of talk, contrived scenarios and twists that you can see coming scenes beforehand. Some character deaths are easy to predict. A sequence where Devereaux confronts Mason at his apartment is completely unnecessary. The track of the Russian lady assassin is disappointingly underdeveloped and ends on a dreadfully asinine note. If one really begins to think about it, most characters, flit in and out of the plot with long absences in between.

An important sequence where a character is forced to confess to his crimes is done poorly. It really makes you wonder how admissible recorded confessions under coercion would hold in any court of law.

Perhaps the flaws may come across as nitpicking but ever for a popcorn thriller, there is a slew lined up to make you either facepalm yourself or find picking the popcorn kernel more engaging.

Neither in the league of Taken, The Bourne series or James Bond himself, November Man is not the most glorious comeback for Pierce Brosnan. The film is a waste of a vehicle and a waste of the audiences’ time and money. Watch online if you must watch at all.