The November Man – Full of clichés that only Pierce Brosnan can make watchable

By Sailesh Ghelani | August 27, 2014

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Directed by Roger Donaldson. Starring Pierce Brosnan, Luke Bracey, Olga Kurylenko, Eliza Taylor, Catarina Scorsone, Bill Smitrovich, Will Patton

If you want to watch an 80s/90s action hero in his 60s make a clichéd film look interesting then skip The Expendables 3 and watch The November Man.

He’s Remington Steele, he’s James Bond and he’s suave enough to carry a film with class and precision. Pierce Brosnan was the actor missing in The Expendables 3 – apart from Bruce Willis who wisely chose not to be in it – but here he is looking like he’s found the fountain of youth that has eluded the saggy-faced actors of The Expendables.

In The November Man there is a brief set up showing Peter Devereaux (Pierce Brosnan) and his apprentice David Mason (Luke Bracey) as CIA agents. The apprentice fails and then you cut to years later in Switzerland as Peter is living a much quieter life. But his former boss Hanley played by Bill Smitrovich re-activates him to go into Russia and extract his fellow spy (Natalia Mediha Musliovic) who has the goods on Fedorov (Lazar Ristovski), a shady ex-general coming up for the race for President.

As expected, things go wrong and Peter comes face to face with David. The CIA then wants to rub out Peter and he wants to help a former Serbian refugee girl called Mira who can stop Fedorov and the CIA from their evil plans. Chases and shoot ‘em ups ensue. There is some witty banter between Peter and David whose equation is never really worked through adequately.

Brosnan and former Bond babe Kurylenko manage to keep the intrigue at a suitable level. There are a few twists in the film too but nothing that gets you to say, “Oh my god, I didn’t see that coming.”

The November Man asks questions and gives answers but as an audience you are still left asking more questions at to motives and plot points. But just like The Expendables 3 was a bad film you ended up watching anyway because of the nostalgia of all those ‘heroes’, The November Man is the clichéd film that you’ll end up seeing for Pierce Brosnan. And you won’t be disappointed with that bit.