When is a movie “Based on a True Story” not really a true story? When the author and main character embellishes or outright makes up crazy stories to include in their biography.
Such seems to be the case of The Courier, the somewhat true to life story of American and Russian spies in the 1960’s during the Cuban Missile Crisis. What is true is that Oleg Penkovsky, an actual Russian agent, played a significant part in preventing a war because of the documents that he passed from Russia to the United States government.
I knew nothing of the actual story coming in and found it interesting to read up on it after the fact. I’m not a big Benedict Cumberbatch fan but you can’t deny that his acting in this role was really amazing. He pulled off a Christian Bale (almost every role)/Tom Hanks (Cast Away) to portray this character by going through a significant body transformation.
There are times that the movie is somewhat confusing, and the 2nd half takes a very sharp turn. The tone shifts dramatically from what was somewhat jocular but dramatic to downright harrowing and intense.
I liked it more than I thought I would and if the Cold War and/or true stories (or at least mostly true stories) are your jam, then give it a look.
When is a movie “Based on a True Story” not really a true story? When the author and main character embellishes or outright makes up crazy stories to include in their biography.
Such seems to be the case of The Courier, the somewhat true to life story of American and Russian spies in the 1960’s during the Cuban Missile Crisis. What is true is that Oleg Penkovsky, an actual Russian agent, played a significant part in preventing a war because of the documents that he passed from Russia to the United States government.
I knew nothing of the actual story coming in and found it interesting to read up on it after the fact. I’m not a big Benedict Cumberbatch fan but you can’t deny that his acting in this role was really amazing. He pulled off a Christian Bale (almost every role)/Tom Hanks (Cast Away) to portray this character by going through a significant body transformation.
There are times that the movie is somewhat confusing, and the 2nd half takes a very sharp turn. The tone shifts dramatically from what was somewhat jocular but dramatic to downright harrowing and intense.
I liked it more than I thought I would and if the Cold War and/or true stories (or at least mostly true stories) are your jam, then give it a look.