Le couteau par la lame

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.

Bottom line is that All the Old Knives is a really fine and absorbing movie. I recommend it, no hesitation. The rest of what I have to say about it just fills in details.

Spy thrillers on the screen seem to fall into two categories. The first and by far the most numerous is the James Bond path: fill the screen with action and when in doubt, add in more car chases, hand-to-hand fights, and explosions. These efforts can be extremely well done and give you a great thrill ride and if that's what you want, there's no lack of choices out there. But the generic problem with those was nicely nailed by that very wise writer Ursula Le Guin: if the only thing going on is unceasing physical action, that's a sure sign no story is being told. (Or words to that effect -- I had trouble finding the exact quote.)

So then we have the second category: the John LeCarre camp. Much rarer and ultimately more interesting. Sylistically the daddy of all of these is The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965, starring Richard Burton and Claire Bloom). All the Old Knives is spookily close to a modern version of that. Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton play now-retired intelligence officers tasked with getting to the bottom of an 8-year-old unsolved mystery: what went wrong with the way their agency dealt with the infamous Flight 127 in Vienna, taken over and destroyed by terrorists? Was there a mole among them, and who? The story gets laid out for us in flashbacks and replays of their memories (and sometimes flashbacks within the flashbacks), bit by bit.

Here's a spoiler for free: there's not a SINGLE car chase, fight, or explosion. Not one. (There is one gunshot.) This is grittier, realer, and tenser. If you think this is boring -- here, have a lollipop. Go away and let the grownups watch it.

The two stars Pine and Newton virtually carry the whole movie, with a bit of help from veterans Laurence Fishburne and Jonathan Pryce in supporting roles. But they are all excellent and the dialog is impressively realistic, constantly engaging. Following the twists and turns is not meant to be easy, I think, but the scenes connect seamlessly and flow beautifully. Is there a message underneath it all? It's never said out loud, but I think it is just that in this spy business, everybody taking part -- sooner or later, right side or wrong side -- loses. Be prepared to have a mix of feelings 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.

The movie has all the good accessories: sleek production, atmospheric mise-en-scene, glossy photography, powerful soundtrack.

But it's the excellent screenplay (from author Olen Steinhauer) and acting performances that make All The Old Knives a high quality espionage thriller, one made of the good old stuff.

For once the genre is not represented in movies by the usual kiss-kiss bang-bang, car chases, fistfights and the whole James Bond enchilada. This is espionage for connoisseurs.

This spy thriller is more about spy-relationships with hardly any thrills. It's a very slow burn, and I can see how many would become impatient. I'm also not a fan of timeline back and forths, and this has many, and more than just two timelines. However, although not perfect, the timelines are what kept me intrigued to continue to watch, as they revealed small pieces of the puzzle throughout. The reward at the end is worth it imo, I just wish the felt-longer 101 min runtime with slow pacing had been shorter and faster. Huge credit goes to Pine and Newton for their exceptional performances, and another reason why I didn't throw in the towel mid-way, plus adding Fishburne and Pryce into the mix was a bonus. So if you don't go into this expecting a James Bond action spy thriller, and have the patience, you may enjoy it once it reaches the end. All the Old Knives had sharp performances, but the story-telling was dull and needed much sharpening. It's a 7.5 rounded up to an 8/10 from me.