All the Old Knives seems almost out of time. Not so much because of its chronology — it revolves around events before, after and during a fictional 2012 terrorist attack in Vienna that leaves over 100 civilians dead — but more because it's the sort of old-school thriller that doesn't seem to get made anymore.
Its two leads, Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton, have that ineffable star quality in an era of moviemaking that has hardly any use for flesh-and-blood stars. Its supporting cast is filled out by reliable heavy hitters Laurence Fishburne and Jonathan Pryce, although the former doesn't get as much to work with here. Mainly it's the movie's slow burn and ambiguous style, courtesy of screenwriter Olen Steinhauser adapting his own novel, that would place it right at home in a 1970s John le Carré spy tale.
When word reaches the CIA in the present day that one of their agents may have been a mole feeding intel to the terrorists (who are ambiguously defined aside from their religion), Pine's Henry Pelham is sent to sniff them out. After several nonlinear scenes, this leads him to dinner in California with his ex-lover and fellow agent, Newton's Celia Harrison, who has moved on from international espionage and now has a husband and kids.
Most of the movie technically takes place at that dinner at Carmel-by-the-Sea – given warm, rosy hues by DP Charlotte Bruus Christensen – as they trade memories, each guarding their true reason for attending. While the movie has its fair share of globetrotting, the dinner as fulcrum melds melodrama to the tragic loss of life at the story's centre.
This isn't Tom Cruise's style of spy thriller. Instead, it's the kind where the biggest moments are in the nearly imperceptible glances and conversational probes as much as what's left unsaid between the two former lovers. In those roles, Pine and Newton's chemistry is central to the whole affair. So it's a good thing they have plenty of it, suggesting years of intimacy beyond what is revealed in flashbacks.
Director Janus Metz's tale of a romantic liaison endlessly complicated by geopolitical events is an old one, at least in its presentation if not its politics. Instead of car chases or vicious hand-to-hand combat, the thrills come from a shared bite of food between two covert operatives, with nary an explosion in sight. It's tale that's out of sync with current Hollywood trends, but that doesn't mean its unwelcome.
(Prime Video)Its two leads, Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton, have that ineffable star quality in an era of moviemaking that has hardly any use for flesh-and-blood stars. Its supporting cast is filled out by reliable heavy hitters Laurence Fishburne and Jonathan Pryce, although the former doesn't get as much to work with here. Mainly it's the movie's slow burn and ambiguous style, courtesy of screenwriter Olen Steinhauser adapting his own novel, that would place it right at home in a 1970s John le Carré spy tale.
When word reaches the CIA in the present day that one of their agents may have been a mole feeding intel to the terrorists (who are ambiguously defined aside from their religion), Pine's Henry Pelham is sent to sniff them out. After several nonlinear scenes, this leads him to dinner in California with his ex-lover and fellow agent, Newton's Celia Harrison, who has moved on from international espionage and now has a husband and kids.
Most of the movie technically takes place at that dinner at Carmel-by-the-Sea – given warm, rosy hues by DP Charlotte Bruus Christensen – as they trade memories, each guarding their true reason for attending. While the movie has its fair share of globetrotting, the dinner as fulcrum melds melodrama to the tragic loss of life at the story's centre.
This isn't Tom Cruise's style of spy thriller. Instead, it's the kind where the biggest moments are in the nearly imperceptible glances and conversational probes as much as what's left unsaid between the two former lovers. In those roles, Pine and Newton's chemistry is central to the whole affair. So it's a good thing they have plenty of it, suggesting years of intimacy beyond what is revealed in flashbacks.
Director Janus Metz's tale of a romantic liaison endlessly complicated by geopolitical events is an old one, at least in its presentation if not its politics. Instead of car chases or vicious hand-to-hand combat, the thrills come from a shared bite of food between two covert operatives, with nary an explosion in sight. It's tale that's out of sync with current Hollywood trends, but that doesn't mean its unwelcome.
