The Courier is a based-on-a-true-story, Cold War-era, spy drama. Bet you’ve never seen one of those before. This well-tread, trope-riddled film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the true-life electrical equipment salesman, Greville Wynne, who is recruited by MI6 to act as a courier (hence the clever film title) between England and Russia, carrying secret documents back and forth between the countries in an attempt to prevent nuclear war. His Russian contact is Oleg Penkovsky, a high-ranking GRU officer, brilliantly played by Merab Ninidze who also played an interrogator in the similar Spielberg film, Bridge of Spies. And it wouldn’t be a war film without the U.S. getting involved, so Rachel Brosnahan fills out the cast as the fictitious CIA agent, Emily Donovan.

Many comparisons to other Cold War spy films, especially Bridge of Spies, are easy to make, but where this one sets itself apart from the rest of the pack is that The Courier is not boring. Of course there’s still plenty of roundtable dialogue in this movie, and intrigue disguising itself as decent plot, but it’s a tightly-edited feature (running at under 2 hours, unlike the majority of others in its subgenre) that only drags a little in the third act.

Greville is constantly looking over his shoulder for any Russian bogeymen out to get him after he agrees to be a courier, and his paranoia keeps him from being able to relax, even when he returns home to London throughout the picture. Oleg fairs little better, but feigns confidence in their secrecy for Greville’s sake. The bond between these two men carry the film, as there is plenty of time spent on them getting to know one another, experiencing what their respective countries have to offer, and spending time with each other’s families. Even small things like Greville’s emotional reaction to a Russian ballet would make you roll your eyes in a lesser movie, but here it’s given just the right amount of weight to avoid tipping over into shmaltzy.

And in this lies what makes the movie truly enjoyable to watch: while other spy films have played the “there’s good and bad on both sides” angle ad nauseum, The Courier doesn’t overdo it. It lets scenes play and allows the audience to collect what it wants to as it builds toward its melancholic climax. I won’t spoil it here, but suffice to say, “War is Hell.”

The Courier is not without it’s problems. While the script is decent, the dialogue is a little on the nose at times. One early scene is Oleg bringing the CIA and MI6 initial information regarding Premier Nikita Khruschev’s nuclear plans, and Emily Donovan comforts him with a speech about how scared he must be to betray his country, and Oleg nods and says, “Khruschev frightens me. He is impulsive, chaotic – a man like that not have nuclear commands.” Perhaps a true statement, but it sounds like something a 16-year-old Twitter user would say about a certain former American President. A small stumbling block in an otherwise enjoyable historical spy thriller.

Verdict: I think I’m going to keep this one. It may not be one I return to very frequently, but I believe it deserves a spot on any movie collector’s shelf.

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