Star: Olga Kurylenko

The November Man (2014) – Pierce Brosnan and Olga Kurylenko

I tried to watch this movie a few times in the past, because its stars and story on paper make a movie right up my street. But I never managed to sit through it before. It just bored the living daylights out of me. Pierce Brosnan was far from my favourite Bond, but he was no where near as bad as Daniel Craig. Brosnan is still alright, and can be very good in the right role, such as in The Foreigner with Jackie Chan.

Let’s give this movie one more chance now. I’ll tolerate what I can, to give you an accurate review.

From muddled overcooked music to excessive posing to shakey over-zoomeed camerawork, this movie is certainly struggling to hold my attention from the outset even though the theme is generally an interesting one, it’s just mostly missing and obscured. Fortunately, enagement picks up when Brosnan gets shot near the 5 minute mark.

By half an hour in, Brosnan is on the run, going up against the CIA that he was until recently working for, and trying to help Olga Kurylenko‘s character from being killed next by a Russian assassin taking everyone out who could be a problem for their presidential candidate. This movie’s got a strong vibe of Jason Bourne already, both in its particular sub-genre and in its mediocre quality. It’s looking set for a Below Average rating by 30 minutes in, but it still has over an hour left to change its fortune slightly in either direction.

This movie has a gloomy TV series vibe, where if you haven’t followed the story from the start it’s very hard to engage with in the middle. It feels a bit like NCIS, where Pierce Brosnan is like a mix of Gibbs and DiNozzo, while Olga Kurylenko resembles Kate Todd or Ziva David (minus the tactical skills). This also means the engagement is walking on thin ice even if you have been following it from the start, but since you’ve already bought into it, you’ll probably remain somewhat curious how it unfolds.

By the end, I’m going to rate this movie So-So. It’s gone slightly down from its early Below Average grade due to excessively dragging its heels with too little really going on towards the end. It looked like it had more pace early on but faded. Prolonged loud music tries to compensate by adding tension to much of the dull action-drama, but that doesn’t fool me. The November Man is roughly on a par with the worst of the five Bourne movies — that’s the fourth one — The Bourne Legacy (2012). The first and fifth Bourne movies were several levels better than the fourth. The second and third were only slightly better than the fourth.

I have to assume the ending, where the perverted Russian presidential candidate gets unexpectedly sniped with a clean shot to the head, is designed as a message to every top politician in the world, that if they don’t play ball or otherwise become no longer useful, they can expect to get taken out with ease without any signal.

Johnny English Strikes Again (2018) – Rowan Atkinson and Olga Kurylenko

This movie — the third in the trilogy that was slowly rolled out over the course of 15 years — follows the pattern of the first two in how it’s similar in concept but each subsequent movie is a bit weaker than the one before it. However, this movie makes an extra big mistake in how it tries to give funny lines to pretty much all the cast. As such, I rate this movie Below Average.

Momentum (2015) – Olga Kurylenko and James Purefoy

This is a story of one trauma to another, interwoven with action, half of which is pretty good. Overall I’m going to rate this movie So So (a couple of levels below Average) due to lack of plot and lack of cast, even though the two core cast members are pretty good, they’re still a bit lonely here with no plot to focus on and no peers to bounce off.

Olga Kurylenko stars as the leader of a crew of bank robbers, and when a job turns sour she finds herself fighting with former partners for her life, her friends’ lives, and the diamonds she claimed. She does alright here, but just has too little a movie to work with. It’s all a bit hollow and traumatising — the cool action is here and there but not enough to make it a strong movie.

James Purefoy plays the leader of the baddies’ clean-up squad, and he’s pretty good at it.

This movie is also graces with a few short appearances from Morgan Freeman as the crooked senator who the clean-up squad report to.

Oblivion (2013) – Tom Cruise and Olga Kurylenko

Just one year before the epic movie that was Edge Of Tomorrow, this movie sees Tom Cruise in his element, rebelliously flying planes and riding motorbikes, but not in the usual context. Oblivion is a dystopian lethal tech-controlled dictatorship world where what few humans remain on Earth are expected to follow a strict regime.

Although it’s a fairly simple movie in terms of having few characters – the closing credits list a cast of literally 7 characters long before getting into Stunt Coordinators then listing a bunch of background characters who we never get to know; and although it has a potentially over-memorable plot; it still does very well at sustaining attention even after having seen it several times before and recently enough such that many other movies would become unable to entertain again.

On the balance of pros and cons, I’m going to rate it Decent. It doesn’t have the excitement of Edge Of Tomorrow, and isn’t as slick as Hitman, so it’s neither Tom’s nor Olga‘s best movie for my taste, but it’s not terribly far off — it’s in good company.

Morgan Freeman plays a supporting role, as does Andrea Riseborough (as Tom’s partner, until he realises he’s been brainwashed) — they both do a pretty good job — not wowing, but appropriate.

The Courier (2019) – Olga Kurylenko

This movie is a classic example of excitement mixed with boredom. On the one hand it’s got some very cool action and backstory, while on the other hand it’s got a very one-dimensional plot – they don’t even leave the one parking lot for the vast majority of the movie. Of course it’s not all shot in one take and one scene, but it’s pretty much one stageset for the whole movie with the exception of the very beginning and the very end. Naturally, this makes it a bit boring throughout, even if it’s also quite exciting thanks to a good genre, a good lead actress (the beautiful Olga Kurylenko from Hitman, although she’s now pushing 40), plus a reasonable supporting cast and respectable screenplay & cinematography. But whatever happened to the plot! For this reason, even while it’s got potential to be rated a lot higher with a bit more scene diversity, it’s ultimately been dragged down to a Below Average in my view. I mean it’s not ‘bad’ bad, but it’s not ‘very good’ either. There’s a few gory scenes in the back half too – beyond unnecessary for the smooth action hero fan, but Hollywood can’t help itself with stuff like that can it.

Hitman (2007) – Timothy Olyphant and Olga Kurylenko

Hitman (2007) starring Timothy Olyphant

As the movie begins with kids being trained to be assassins from some kind of lab setting, while having barcodes tattooed into the backs of their necks, it’s clear the backstory to Hitman bears a striking resemblance to the TV series Dark Angel starring Jessica Alba.

Timothy Olyphant does a good job as the star of this simplified James Bond style movie – he has vibes of Michael Weatherly going on – they’re practically twins. Olyphant plays a highly skilled assassin called Agent 47 who has successfully evaded capture by police for a long time.

Olga Kurylenko does pretty well as the lead female in this movie. This was her breakthrough movie, before going on to take starring and supporting roles in many more exciting action movies, such as The Assassin Next Door (2009), Erased (2012), Oblivion (2013, with Tom Cruise), The November Man (2014, with Pierce Brosnan), Momentum (2015), Gun Shy (2017, with Antonio Banderas), Johnny English Strikes Again (2018, with Rowan Atkinson), The Courier (2019), High Heat (2022), Extraction 2 (2023, with Chris Hemsworth). Trying not to mention Quantum of Solace, as I can’t stand Daniel Craig trying to be James Bond – nevertheless Olga Kurylenko was in Quantum of Solace (2008) just one year after Hitman.

Timothy Olyphant, on the other hand, kind of disappeared, starring in no other major action movies after The Hitman, although he did take a minor supporting role in the Star Wars spin-off series The Mandalorian.

Robert Knepper (from Transporter 3) puts in a strong performance as the chief FSB (Russian secret police) agent in the movie. Dougray Scott also gives a strong performance as the Interpol agent who’s been tracking the assassin, Agent 47, around the world for a long time. That’s all the major cast members worth mentioning.

Overall, Hitman (2007) is a bit simplistic compared to a good James Bond movie, but it zeroes in on a certain style very similar to The Transporter or The Equalizer, and does it equally well. With a slightly stronger plot, and a slightly slicker and less suspenseful back end, it could be even better, although they all suffer from this same issue.