All the Old Knives

All the Old Knives is a genre movie trading on the John LeCarre-like tropes of intrigue and betrayal but with more of the latter and less the former. CIA agent Henry Pelham (Chris Pine) investigates the the successful hijacking of a Turkish airliner in a Vienna airport by jihad terrorists in 2012 with over a hundred people murdered-- suggesting a mole within the CIA ranks.

The pace is deliberate, slow if you will, allowing director Janus Metz and writer Olen Steinhauer (from his book) to linger on protagonist Henry and his former love, Celia Harrison (Thandiwe Newton), a retired agent who worked for the agency at the time of the hijacking. The film dwells on their intimate conversation and lovemaking with closeups too many even for me, who usually gains insights from such intimacy.

The emphasis leaves too little time to be caught up ordinarily in plot twists and distracting clues. Even the least sophisticated viewer will not miss Jonathan Price's Bill Compton as a possible red herring for the mole-the conventions of this genre don't allow an obvious suspect that early in the game.

The plot, then, misses the richness of spy mechanics and twists that point everywhere and nowhere-always an anarchic joy keeping cinephiles engaged.

When the plot devolves into Henry and Celia at a Carmel restaurant by the sea with free-range bacon and only wine, their intimate conversation struggles about who is the culprit and whether the two still love each other. It exhausts with their mooning, her cliche-required tears, and their lovemaking, which is gratuitous.

However, the virtue of this approach is to allow the film's theatrical quality to emerge and treat theatre lovers to tight dialogue and pent-up passion. However, if emphasis had been placed on deconstructing the possible perps, the mystery would have crackled. Other engaging characters are plentiful in All the Old Knives but not used.

Although that Carmel restaurant is as glamorous as the leads (even if constructed on a sound stage in the UK), it occupies almost half the film, loading us with flashbacks and incompetent waiters, none of which is fleshed out enough to be suspicious. Rest assured that ends are tied up and spy justice administered with a twist on honor to get your attention.

Betrayal is the name of the game and has always been for the spy agencies and their operatives. Here not only does the mole betray his country, but our two heroes also have a history. For those related to agents, betrayal is an everyday game of what the agent really does.

For the audience, a certain amount of action while still offering potent dialogue is welcomed in spy stories, some of that in All the Old Knives. But don't ask me about that title: It's as inscrutable as the story is much of the time.

I'm happy for the challenge at this low season for movies after Oscar.

Where the complicated strings of life in the shadowlands of spying at each other, ultimately leads to the fall of a king or chessmate or chest mate and good night...

an unusual tight , extremely dusk, grey and dark spythriller, not as action filled as ''spy games'', but eventually pretty decent try on a genre that hasnt been overflowing the market lately. Its got pieces and bits of material from 70 and 80's classics, like ''sting'' and ''the mole'', and the story is pretty tense to follow.

A bit slow on plot speed, and some lack on prescicionediting, its overflowed with decent filmatographic and dramaturgic cleverness, and the surprises never seems to end. A bit dull is the musical score, and the acting never reaches the upper cut, but entertaining it is. So without blood and gore and heavy shootouts, the grumpy old man recommends this kinda spy chess.

Don't come into this expecting nonstop action and thrills. What we have here is a ponderous, character-driven Cold War style espionage film that takes it time telling its intriguing story and has a satisfying payoff.

I was happy that some of the twists have much more depth than at initial glance and feel more natural than a lot of shock value storytelling. Pine and Newton do most of the heavy lifting and fit their roles well. Pine gives off some serious elder Brosnan vibes here and I'm here for it. The story ends up being quite heartfelt and bypasses most of the cliches that plague the genre.

The people complaining about how confusing it is clearly did not pay attention because every prior moment of intrigue is explained by the end.

The story centers on (fictional) Flight 127 in 2012 that was taken over in Austria by terrorists, their demands weren't met, everyone died, including the terrorists. Now 8 years later, in 2020, the American "agency" again sets out to examine how things unfolded back then with the new, unverified information that a captured terrorist said there was an inside informant that gave them some key information. Henry is assigned the task to interview key personnel to try to verify or refute that information. One of those is his ex-lover Celia.

The movie uses an editing approach that is frustrating at times, as they switch frequently between present time and eight years earlier. Then as things start to jell near the end, a key scene is replayed showing information that was withheld from the audience the first time around. Then everything we saw is tied together only during the last few minutes of the movie.

It certainly is manipulative, to keep viewers guessing until the very end. Ultimately the doomed flight 127 is just an event that allows the story to explore the real relationship between Henry and Celia and what some people will do for love.

My wife and I watched it at home on Amazon Prime streaming movies. Not a great movie but we were entertained. Pine and Newton are good.

Definitely a 7 or more. Right now showing a 6 is very underated. Great acting by both Newton and Pine. Keeps you interested throughout. I'd recommend for sure.