The Numbers Station (2013)

What happened to John Cusack? This is a guy who I have long admired, from “Say Anything,” with the boom box serenade, to “Grosse Point Blank,” a CIA assassin satire. But with “The Numbers Station,” on the heels of the regrettable “The Raven,” it seems Cusack has hit a deep, unfortunate slump. This has Cusack as one of the most tired of clichés, the deadly CIA killer (see, again) with a crisis of conscious after a job goes south and an innocent is killed. So his sad sack agent is sent to timeout, or more precisely, a remote U.S. Army outpost in England to babysit a code sender (Malin Akerman, because no government worker forced to live in isolation for two years at a time would look like Ma Barker) with orders to pop her if the station is ever compromised. Low and behold, the station falls under attack, and Kent must fight the good fight and talk about his wounded psyche with Ackerman’s coder, as people tend to do while being shot at. Will Cusack’s agent kill the lady? Right, the moment after Lloyd Dobler buys an iPad with ear buds. D+