All the Old Knives

Unarguably one of the best movies of 2022. It has no flaws. Perfect ending. But it is one of those to each his own type. I watch a lot of movies and tv shows. "Wow that was great" is somewhat scarce these days. For me this was one of them in a long time. Extremely long time I must say.

A very interesting plot and filming for a spy movie as it essentially takes place in setting as two former colleagues/lovers reminisce about an old case and flashbacks occur to tell the story. It certainly keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat as one of the former colleagues is investigating the other on a re-opened case and just as the viewer might have thought they know who the culprit is the story flips. A lot going on as it is a spy film, but not too hard to follow. Yes the filming could have been better but the acting was good and the story was fantastic.

Some would call this a slow-burner movie, but it's more like a candle about to extinguish burner. It plods along with an interesting if what VERY slow unraveling of who was the mole in the CIA 8 years previously. I guessed it within 5 minutes, but not why (watch the movie to understand why).

It's a very low-key quiet movie - literally quiet with no action, but it's worth watching.
8/10

Spy movies are often hard to grasp in the beginning stages due to the 900 characters that get introduced in the first few minutes. After that, the plot became quite interesting. Chris Pine isn't really one of my favorites, but he held his own across from the amazing Thandiwe Newton. I liked it! I'd watch it again. 3/5 for the interesting plot, and a half-star for Newton.

The good stuff:
** The chemistry between Pine and Newton was positive, and the sex scenes were pretty hot.
** The twist was neither crazy, nor given away too early. The ending was very logical.
** Some spy movies get too convoluted to watch. This one was laid out pretty well.
** This came in at a pretty tight 102 minutes; not a lot of useless stuff added.

The bummers:
-- Why have Laurence Fishburne in this movie if you're not going to use him much?
-- Without spoiling it much, I figure the terrorists didn't act as expected. Maybe that's not much of a bummer, but in one particular case, if a guy screws a terrorist over, he'll probably get killed.

There is a lot to like about this movie: it is nice to look at and there are some actors giving some very good performances. I think the resolution was excellent - when the movie ended I thought about the final few scenes for a while. I wanted to love the movie but I never quite got there. Part of the reason for this might be because much of the movie is flashbacks and that takes some of the "thrill" out of "thriller". It's a fine movie but not one of the year's best.

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This was a solid, twisty, podcast-on-film suspense drama that I thought punched far above its weightclass considering the scope of the production. It's predictable to some degree, sure, but it still had the pacing, breadcrumb trail and slow reveal that I enjoy in a good suspense-driven drama. Not fantastic, but far above average.

This is one hell of an engaging tension filled thriller. To the very end. Both leads are superb, and the duplicity, is startling. A very enjoyable film.

This film feels very much like a product of COVID filmmaking. While it hides it well, at the end of the day it is a remarkably small story, all structured around a tense reunion between two former colleagues/lovers who haven't seen each other in eight years. Initially, the limitations did start to drag things down for me, as the pace felt slow and the storytelling simple. However, this was one of those rare cases where the ending really pulled things together and made me look back more kindly on all of the setup that was needed to make it work. The reveals are suitably surprising for a CIA thriller, and more impressively, they have a dramatic impact on not just the plot, but also the character relationships that form the true backbone of the film. It's a very rare feat to write twist that successfully re-contextualizes everything we've seen prior, but I think this about pulls it off. There are probably some logical nitpicks that I could come up with if I think back through certain character's actions with full knowledge of the pending twists, but nothing so egregious as to ruin the experience. Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton are both solid in the central roles. All in all, a worthwhile, dialogue driven thriller.

First half is slow, but it gets much better to the end. M

It got good at the end, everything before was a bit slow. [spoiler] I liked the multiple twists at the end. Wasn't expecting that, but the failsafe shooter at the end saying he needed a yes and didn't get anything because the guy was dying was a plothole to me. That didn't add up correctly because why would the shooter just walk away from that. [/spoiler]