Review: 'The Courier' is a true story, and it's bonkers

As far as true stories go, this one is bonkers. During the Cold War, MI6 employed an engineer and businessman with no training, formal or informal, and certainly no experience dealing with dangerous KBG agents. Greville Wynne was recruited because of his regular dealings and frequent travel to Eastern Europe, which gave him the access to carry messages back and forth between a Russian mole, Oleg Penkovsky, and British intelligence.

In short, even before it gets the Hollywood treatment, there is no end to the elements of suspense and intrigue that this story entails. The backdrop of the Cold War is a particularly sexy era for writers and filmmakers to imbue with dramatic, hyperbolized imagery detailing sophisticated espionage and classic old world noir charm. The mystique of the Kremlin and the ways in which spies operated during this nostalgic-heavy era has made for excellent, enthralling film fodder. Which is why "The Courier" is, for lack of a kinder word, bland.

Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Wynne in a turn that feels unimaginative, though always welcome. The acclaimed thespian has played a brilliant mathematician, the most famous detective in history with iconic idiosyncrasies and a neurosurgeon turned Marvel superhero with mystical abilities and a genius intellect. A smart businessman with a straightforward profession and an otherwise uninteresting personal life is a Cumberbatch cinch, a role the actor, who can be charming without any heavy lifting, can - and does - sleepwalk his way through. Despite this stellar cast which also finds Rachel Brosnahan as a CIA agent leading the mission's charge alongside MI6 and Merab Ninidze, an actor born in the USSR in 1965, as Penkovsky, "The Courier" starts too slow and never finds the momentum required to hook audiences and reach any kind of crescendo.

Wynne, however infinitely interesting his story may be, is almost too easy, too uncomplicated. Through much of the film that fact may slip through your thoughts, nudging you from the stupor of smooth viewing. The story is told on a narrow track without much deviation from the facts for outrageous, metaphorical dreams or dark and sinister subplots detailing the horrors that surely occurred during this period. There is also nothing special about Wynne, and certainly in real life, MI6 would have chosen a boring, ordinary man who repels suspicion to take on the high-risk role of an international espionage courier. But filmmaking is all about angles, and this one doesn't even attempt to give us anything but head-on and starkly lit.

We open in London, 1960. The communist country then called the USSR is planning something, hidden away behind stringent borders and a state of constant suspicion. Intelligence agencies around the world are scrambling for insight as to their impending plans. This is where Wynne comes in, at first as one-time intermediary, traveling to Eastern Europe as he would normally for business. While there, he accepts and carries home a message from a Soviet official willing to undermine his stiflingly corrupt government who have plans for guaranteed devastation.

Penkovsky, like Wynne, is a family man who felt compelled to act. Whether based on their actual relationship or not, the film takes a sweet and bromantic view of what their dealings looked like. Trips to the opera, wining and dining, visiting each other's families. Cumberbatch and Ninidze find a groove that propels the entire film forward; it is when they aren't together that the story stalls, stuttering through red tape and dry, informational inserts meant to fill the audience in rather than exercise their critical thinking skills.

This is, to put a finger on the problem, exactly what "The Courier" is lacking: intellectual stimulation. There isn't much conjecturing or subtle, nearly imperceptible implications. The bad guys and good guys are glaringly obvious and remain in their lanes. The film makes few conjectures about Wynne or Penkovsky as humans and keeps them on their one-dimensional plane. We never feel tested by the subject on screen; at no point is any of this over our heads, and, honestly, isn't that the fun of political thrillers: feeling like these people really do know more than you and will find the solution in a way you couldn't anticipate?

That being said, there is nothing "wrong" with this film. If you enjoy history dramas and light suspense, then no doubt you will enjoy this one. The acting is divine, and the true story about how one ordinary man helped resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis is incredible. It's a subject your father will undoubtedly love to discuss in greater detail, so if you can, bring him with you when you brave boredom and dive into "The Courier".

"The Courier" is available on premium video on demand today, April 16.