The Courier (2020)

 

That Dominic Cooke's The Courier feels a tad stagey makes sense considering Cooke is a decorated British theatre director at the helm of only his second feature film. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the title character, an Englishman in 1960 who facilitates business partnerships. He is contacted by MI6 and the CIA to serve as an undercover liaison between a Soviet informant (the tremendous Georgian actor Merab Ninidze) and British and American intelligence, played by Angus Wright and Rachel Brosnahan, respectively. Cumberbatch is an actor of impressive versatility and presence; his five minutes near the end of the powerful WWI film 1917 crystallized the film's message of misery that comes from hubris. He delivers the same commanding performance in this crisp story of a man, who never pictured himself as courageous or sacrificial, answering the call, not of Mother England but of compassion and loyalty.