spies
Restless, BBC OneSaturday, 29 December 2012
William Boyd wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of his 2006 espionage novel, and since it’s integral to the whole he retained its two-part structure. The first concerns the World War II activities of former British intelligence spy Eva... Read more... |
Jack ReacherMonday, 24 December 2012
Fans of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels are spitting feathers that their fictional hero is being played by Tom Cruise. This is not least because in the books, Reacher is a hulking fellow built like a giant redwood with fists the size of dustbins (he... Read more... |
Top Gear: Fifty Years of Bond Cars, BBC TwoTuesday, 30 October 2012
The appearance of the Goldfinger-era Aston Martin DB5 in the new Skyfall is prompting cheers from audiences, and as Richard Hammond commented in this celebration of Bondmobiles down the ages, the Bond movies have been unique in their ability to turn... Read more... |
Skyfall reviewTuesday, 23 October 2012
It's Bond number 23, and if you were to suggest to me that it was the best of the lot, I might very well agree with you. This is a terrific James Bond movie, thoughtfully written, shrewdly cast and taking stock of everything that the 50-year-old... Read more... |
Skyfall: The World PremiereSaturday, 13 October 2012
This could be the best Bond yet: light on sex, heavy on storytelling, hard on action. This is 100 percent pure Bond - a distillation of beauty, action, surprises and locations. Let's start with the latter: perhaps it’s best to stay away from... Read more... |
This Means WarThursday, 01 March 2012
Forget the action movie trappings of the aggressively titled This Means War: the latest film from the enigmatically named McG has a plot that Noel Coward might well have loved. Whether Sir Noel would have approved of the witless dialogue and the... Read more... |
theASHtray: Homeland, Kings of Leon, and we need to talk about AïdaSaturday, 25 February 2012
So Homeland is here, and mid-ranking-CIA-operative Claire Danes is chasing Marine-Sergeant-and-possible-al-Qaeda-double-agent Damian Lewis all over the shop (but really only in their heads, so far), and neither of them is getting anywhere fast, so... Read more... |
Johnny English RebornMonday, 03 October 2011
"Barclaycard? This man's in no state to go shopping!" Thus we remember the credit card commercials which formed the "origin story" of blundering secret agent Johnny English, then known as Richard Latham. Better name in fact, but no matter. Eight... Read more... |
The DebtThursday, 29 September 2011
John Madden's mainstream remake of Israeli thriller Ha-Hov – The Debt – features three Mossad operatives despatched to Sixties Berlin on an Eichmann-style mission to kidnap a former Nazi and escort him to Israel for trial.In pursuit... Read more... |
Spooks, Series 10, BBC OneMonday, 19 September 2011
Am I being paranoid, or are there spies everywhere these days? A quick squiz at the telly guide recently, and you'd have been forgiven for thinking that everyone in London is either employed in the security services or in making films about them.... Read more... |
Tinker Tailor Soldier SpyFriday, 16 September 2011
Tomas Alfredson’s riveting, stately adaptation of John le Carré’s classic spy novel is an immaculately measured teaser, delivered one carefully heaped spoonful at a time. Primped, polished and with the tension ratcheted up a notch for the big screen... Read more... |
Page Eight, BBC TwoMonday, 29 August 2011
I think I owe David Hare an apology. When I sat down to watch Page Eight, last night – being, as it is, his latest probing of our moral and political universe – I just assumed that our national intelligence services would be in for a trendy-... Read more... |
