Sean Connery-era
classic Bond “From Russia With Love”
(1963) is unapologetically mean, early 1960s fun and danger, crude indeed, the absolute best
of the 007 series as our hero knowingly enters a trap to snatch a top secret
Enigma-code like device from the Russians.
Except it’s not the Russians setting
the trap, its SPECTRE, the terrorist group led by an unseen Blofed and fronted
by a blonde thug (Robert Shaw) who seems to embody a Hitler Youth fantasy and a
madwoman fascist (Lotte Lenya) with a steel-toe kick. Connery nails the film
without lifting an eyebrow or breaking a sweat. His train car tussle with Shaw
is one of the best fight scenes ever, and “Russia” only gets better with a boat
chase, a helicopter terror hunt, and a finale inside a hotel room. It’s perfect
cool.
Now, later Bond man Pierce Brosnan goes all wrong in the forgettable,
drab “The November Man” (2014) as a professional assassin who trains his
protégé to never fall in love and birth children, and then secretly… well, you
know. Right? I mean, here’s a spy film where you can guess every next spy-plot twist
and sit back and watch it. Yawning. Brosnan is too good for this.
Russia: A November: C-
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