Pinoy Movie Club: spy

Showing posts with label spy. Show all posts

Why do we find a messy and choppy film is a good film? When it's intentional. The movie surprisingly entertained us and here we go.

Mike Howell (played by Jesse Eisenberg) is addicted to pot who has a stoner girl friend in Phoebe Larson (played by Kristen Stewart). The lived in a secluded town of Liman, West Virginia. He works as a store clerk and he was activated by Victoria Lasseter (played by Connie Britton). Unknown to him, Mike is part of a sleeper CIA spy program Wiseman Ultra. She delivered a code to him but it had a delayed effect on him. He only realized that he had hidden talents when he confronted two men from the Toughguys program sent to kill him. He was able to kill them using a spoon. He freaks out and call Phoebe explaining he doesn't understand how he was able to do what he just did. Eventually the Sheriff arrives and whisks them to the station for questioning when two more Toughguys arrived and killed the entire police force.

Using his new found skills, both Mike and Phoebe was able to survive the attack. They run and hide most of the time until Mike learns that Phoebe is also a CIA operative assigned to be his handler. Broken hearted, he tried to stay away from Phoebe but she was kidnapped by the Toughgys. Mike then arranges for his surrender in exchange for Phoebe but as usual, he prevailed and was able to rescue Phoebe.

There were a lot of things happening in the movie that we felt was a bit over top and that was not relevant the story thus we deemed this as a messy movie. But if the mess was done with intent and nicely done, its entertaining and we love this film. Jesse Eisenberg can be quirky and this trait suits his role as Mike Howell here. A paranoid stoner with lots of things in his mind he really did pull this one off.

Honestly we pictured Kristen Stewart as a vampire but that changed with her portrayal as Phoebe here. We were surprised that she can act, really, her character in the Twilight was not endearing to us. We thought she could not measure up with Jesse here that we might as well focus on him more. But lo and behold, she did a fine job here and we can say, she can stand high in this movie in the acting department. Jesse and her really brought the film to fruition and they did entertain us.

Quirky, witty, action well done with romance on the side, this movie is a big hit for us.

He was armed with a spoon - American Ultra (2015)

Evelyn Salt (played by Angelina Jolie) was accused of being a spy in North Korean and was being tortured when the movie opened. Through the efforts of her boyfried Mike Krause (played by August Diehl) he was able to pressure the US Government to arrange for a prisoner exchange. During this time she still denies being a CIA operative and this was the time when Krause finally proposed marriage.

For the next two years of marriage, Salt still worked secretly as a CIA operative when a Russian Defector Oleg Orlov (played by Daniel Olbrychski) landed in her office. He wanted to defect and it's Salt's job to corroborate his story prior to accept Orlov's pleas for political asylum. During the interrogation Orlov mentioned about deep sleeper Russian agents being trained and inserted into US society hoping that on Day X, they will be activated to serve the Russian nation. That on the same day, these sleeper agents will assassinate the Russian President while attending the funeral of the American Vice President. Orlov then reveals the name of the sleeper agent tasked to assassinate the Russian President, it was Evelyn Salt. Everyone in the room was startled by this revelation and they tried to contain Salt in the CIA premises. Fearing for her husband's safety, she escaped and tries to find her husband whom she later knew was kidnapped.

Orlov likewise escaped while being transferred to a holding cell and later vanished. Orlov's surfacing at the CIA office was merely a trigger for sleeper agent Salt. While on the run, she prepares for the "assassination" of the Russian President and she did. She got caught in the process but by sheer skill, she was able to escape and proceed to the Russian safe house run by Orlov.

To prove her loyalty to the mission, there in the safe house was her husband then in front of her, had him killed. Showing no reaction from Mike's death, Orlov was convinced of her loyalty, proceeded to instruct her on the part of her mission. To meet up with another sleeper agent Shnaider (played by Corey Stoll) who was tasked to bring her to the White House. Shnaider then made a suicide attack on the US President to force an evacuation to the underground bunk, with Salt following.

While trying to get into the Bunker, Salt then found out that her CIA co worker Ted Winter (played by Liev Schreiber) was inside and is a sleeper agent as well. He killed everyone inside the bunker except for the US President whom he kept alive. Winter's mission was to activate and launch nuclear missiles against Tehran and Mecca to incite a retaliation of the Muslims against the United States.

Salt tried to coaxed Winter to open the door to the bunker when he later found out that the Russian President whom Salt "assassinated" was deemed alive and well. He then doubted Salt's loyalty and he did not let her in. Salt then was able to physically get into the bunker and aborted the launch of the nuclear missiles when American Secret Service agents were also there to rescue the American President.

As Salt was being escorted out of the bunker, Winter grabbed a pair of scissors hoping to kill her to keep his identity secret. As Salt passed him by, instead of Winter lunging at her, she was able to hook her handcuffs on Winter's neck and strangled him. She was then was whisked off to a waiting helicopter to be interrogated off site while enroute, she was able to convince CIA Counter Intelligence Officer Darryl Peabody (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) to release her and have her track down other sleeper agents.

The movie is a great spy thriller and its story is rich with back stories and establishment plot points. This is another Jason Bourne type of a movie worthy of sequels. The movie is an origin story of sorts and we were hoping to that we get to see more of Evelyn Salt. Sadly no sequels came out for reasons we don't understand.

We haven't seen Angelina Jolie lately in movies so seeing her in this gives us another taste of action from her. We love her in Mr and Mrs Smith so we know she would do fairly well in this one. Supporting actors here are likewise great as they held up their roles pretty well, making the story smooth and the scenes emotional keeping us well within the film. The plot was typical of a spy thriller particular to a sleeper agent but as we said earlier, we get a sense of an origin story here. A plot to start a war is not original and averting it is not as well. All was well to end the story there but when our heroine mentioned that there are others like her out in the open, and that she promises to find them, we then surmised that our story does not end with the saving of the American President and the world.

Currently showing on Netflix, we fervently wish that a sequel be made on this character. Its seldom we see female leads doing this kind of shit ala Jason Bourne and we love see more of this.

Sprinkle in a little bit of Salt (2010)

During the 1990s when you see Michael Douglas on the poster you immediately would want to watch that movie. We don't know how but somehow this dashing actor, even when he looks the same in most of his movies, can pull off that character and make it unique for that movie. When he was in the American President, we loved him as the president. He played Gordon Gecko in Wall Street, we loved him as that shrewd and greedy businessman, and in other roles in Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct and Falling Down to name a few.

Now he comes here as Ed Leland, a hotshot lawyer that doubles as a spy for the US Government and we now love him as the spy. We may not see him put out some spy shit here but hell, we believed him to be so in this movie.

Paired with Douglas is Melanie Griffith playing Linda Voss. A half German half Irish girl who grew up in New York City. She became the translator cum secretary then lover to our Ed Leland. In a stroke of luck, she volunteers to be a spy inside Germany as she is qualified she says like a German butchers wife. She was to gather intelligence for a secret weapon Germany was creating against the Allied forces during World War II. She was inserted as a cook but her dishes went array and their mission is almost scrubbed when suddenly she was hired as a nanny for a much higher ranking officer, Franz-Otto Dietrich (played by Liam Neeson). Here she was able to get the information she needed and that helped in the war against Germany.

The movie is well made, the story line was solid, the back stories were short and sweet, the side stories about her cousins and the betrayal of her friend Margrete Von Eberstein (played by Joely Richardson) were good enough to add some spice to the movie. There are dull moments in the film, each lull in the story telling are important thus keeps you glued to the screen.

To be honest, we were never a fan of Melanie Griffith but somehow in this one, we were. The movie was tailored fit for a heroine and we were glad she pulled off a great performance. We recommend that you watch this film if you get a chance as this is a great spy romance thriller drama of a movie. Sadly its not on Netflix at the time of this writing, but we are confident this is shown on Amazon Prime.

Women Bravery in Shining Through (1992)

Within this week we were lucky enough to watch two trailers for movies we are excited to watch in the year 2020. Slated for release a month from each other, the 25th James Bond film - No Time To Die will be for release April while the much awaited solo film Black Widow will be shown a month later.

Finally Natasha Romanoff gets her own film after she sacrificed herself in Avengers End Game. This is somehow a worthy reward for her heroic deed. In the solo film, she's joined by her family starting off with the Red Guardian played by David Harbour. His Character is the russian counterpart of Captain America in the US. Playing her sister Yelena Belova is Florence Pugh, with Natasha's demise in Avengers, fans surmise that she will play the new Black Widow in the present timeline. William Hurt will undergo some de-aging as he plays Thaddeus Ross and Robert Downey Jr. will reprise his role as Iron Man/ Tony Stark (the story line of the film is prior to the snap).

On the other film, James Bond's No Time To Die, Daniel Craig will be in his fifth outing as the dashing and debonair spy. In the film, he finally retires as a double O to be with Dr. Madeleine Swann (from the prior film Spectre). He comes out of retirement though when his CIA friend, Felix Leiter reaches out to him for help. Nothing much of the story is out yet, but we know he will be dealing with likes of Rami Malik's character Safin.

Both trailers are linked herein and both are exciting to watch. Something truly to look out for the next year.

Exciting Movie Trailers

Who wouldn't love a Jack Ryan movie? That american character created by Tom Clancy that's not a spy but a CIA Analyst who's humility equals to that of his brilliance. There were a lot of movies made with this character and we love Harrison Ford playing this role.

The film starts off with the coast guard finding a yacht piloted by some drug cartel people with dead rich couple who unfortunately has close ties with the US President. Of course an investigation followed and the CIA found out that the dead rich couple wasn't as clean as the President knew. His friend was laundering money for the Colombian drug cartel. He was assumed to have been killed as he skimmed 650 million dollars from them. This lead to the President freezing the money for the government much to the behest of the cartel leader Ernesto Escobedo.

In retaliation for the death of the dead couple, the US President then proceeds to take action against the cartel. This action is unknown to the US Congress and was done through another CIA official in Bob Ritter. They know Jack Ryan was a good guy and wouldn't approve of the operation thus the need for Bob. He would run operation "Reciprocity" with John Clark (played by Willem Dafoe), who formed an elite squad undertaken to cripple the drug operations and to kill its leaders.

Along the way some twists and turns, Escobedo got hold of the US interfering in his operations and asked for a truce using his Intelligence Officer Felix Cortez. They agreed that US operations would stop in Colombia and in return, the cartel will drastically reduce the volume of drugs being shipped to the United States.

This cessation of hostilities came at a price, the squad formed by Clark was captured and some were killed for which Bob Ritter blamed Jack Ryan for it. This was a ruse to make John Clark angry at Jack, angry enough to be killed by him. Good thing John Clark knew that he was being played by Bob, thus our favorite character was saved from being killed.

With Bob's play known to Clark, the latter then sided with Ryan who proceeded to have a plan to save Clark's captured crew. In the process he was able to neutralize the cartel's Cortez, taken cared of Escobedo and was able to point the unauthorized use of power by the US President.

We love the play between Jack Ryan and Felix Cortez (whom they call he Latin Jack Ryan). They are both analysts and would try to outwit the other with their minds. A play with the other characters make this movie interesting. James Earl Jones made a brief appearance here as the CIA Director and he is great here. Other notable actors who impressed us here were Willem Dafoe (CIA Team Leader) and Joaquim de Almeida as the Intelligence Officer.

This movie is tops in my list for a marathon simply because of Harrison Ford and the Jack Ryan character. He played it so well that it never bores me to watch this over and over again. The storyline is rich and the story telling is as seamless as it can be. The twist and turns keep you guessing and the side stories are also interesting.

This is available on Netflix should you wish to watch it.

Another Blockbuster from Harrison Ford - Clear and Present Danger (1994)

Knight and Day? Why was this film titled such? I have no clue what so ever. Tom Cruise was Roy Miller and Cameron Diaz was June Havens in this film. Roy is a spy with a very precious item that he has to transport and with all the government agents after him, he has a ridiculous plan of hiding it in June's trolley bag. Hoping that his precious cargo would be "safe" with her.

Ridiculously unfortunate for June, all the passengers on the plane, maybe less than 10, all were agents out to get Roy. She was the only civilian in the plane! I can't imagine how the other agents pulled that one off, buying off the entire flight just to get to Roy. Of course Roy is Tom Cruise and who could beat him right? In a twist of fate they survived the ordeal and June is back to her "normal" world, only to be pursued again by the agents that were after Roy. And Roy comes back to save her. This has been always the case, of Roy saving June.

At first the action in the first half was great. It was the transitions that somehow left us wanting to see what happened when June is blacked out. It wasn't just once she was blacked out and this happened a number of times. Once she wakes up, she's stuck in a new scenario and we are waiting for the next action sequence to come along and then all the screen blacks out again.

Maybe this is where the name of the movie was derived. Its night and day, she blacks out then awakes at another country or scene.

Tom Cruise was brilliant as always with his fight scenes and somehow Cameron Diaz offers complementary to this with her role. Although she can hold her own action scene (Charlie's Angels), she and Tom has somewhat of a connection that we liked.

Skip the ridiculous story line and plot twists, the movie enjoyable. Just don't put logic and sense into it. Simply be entertained.

Currently being shown in Amazon Prime.

Non Stop Energy - Knight and Day (2010)

Following in the genre of Jason Bourne and James Bond, spy stuff is something we cinema goers like to watch in an action film. Jason being the rough tough guy while James is the suave and sophisticated (what's with the J?) will Dylan O'Brien's Mitch can find itself in the middle?

To give you a background of the movie, [spoiler alert] Mitch is shown frolicking in the sun with her girlfriend then some radical terrorists opened fire killing her and wounding him in the process. Fast forward to the current, we see Mitch still wallowing in grief and vows to avenge his girlfriends death by being a bad boy and infiltrating the religious radicals for which he was rescued by the government and turns him into an asset or agent. Whew that was a long one.

Basically that's the gist of the first half of the movie. The second part is the mission itself. Tracking down a well known arms dealer who has a dooms day device component. Everything here then took different twists and turns as it turns out another agent turned rogue, Ghost wants to exact havoc on the institution that trained him and left him. Sounds simple the plot but again, lots of action herein.

Kudos to Dylan O'Brien for giving a great performance here and he truly deserves the praises here. His portrayal of the grief stricken boyfriend was spot on. His change from good guy to bad guy so as to infiltrate the radicals was not over the top. Although his emotions about his girlfriend flares up when her name was mentioned was okay at first, but doing it more so often loses its appeal somehow mid film.

A surprising performance was also done by Taylor Kitsch as the ghost. Although he only surfaced mid way, his role as the antagonist is a welcome compliment to our protagonist. As both sports a bearded outlook, I kinda thought that somehow they were related. I do wish they are related as that would be an interesting plot line similar to "The Accountant". Anyhow, the ghost and Mitch isn't related so there.

After a string of not so great movies by Michael Keaton, this film re introduces his great acting skills once again. The film shown in the year along with Spiderman Homecoming, both of which his acting performance was to a T. Both films solidifies that he is truly a drama actor to contend with and that he is again back to give us solid performances. We do hope this string of successes will continue as we see him as a truly great actor worthy of awards.

Basing on strong acting outputs from the three, this saves the film from being so serious and yes boring. Plot line is simple yet story line twists and turns leading to seriousness tends to steer you to the boring side.

The film I believe is a great back story to start off a series. Not that this film has memorable action or drama scenes, but if this is a start of sequels, it has done its job not great but fairly well. We do hope that the producers who gave a so so film with lots of great potentials improves on this if they do make another sequel. If this was made as a pilot episode for a TV series, then this one will surely blow me away.

Pinoy Movie Club

He was armed with a spoon - American Ultra (2015)

Sprinkle in a little bit of Salt (2010)

Women Bravery in Shining Through (1992)

Exciting Movie Trailers

Another Blockbuster from Harrison Ford - Clear and Present Danger (1994)

Non Stop Energy - Knight and Day (2010)

American Assassin - A New Action Film Series In the Works?

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