I was in MI-5 just long enough to realise, you can do good, or you can do well. Sooner or later, they make you choose.
Spooks: The Greater Good
(2015)
(SPOILERS) The last time I watched Spooks (or MI-5, as it is
known in many countries) can have been no more recently than 2007, as Rupert
Penry-Whatshishyphenate was still starring, and he got blown up soon after (as
is wont to happen in their risk-friendly business). As the series carried on
until 2010, and I only sporadically watched it before that, you could conclusively
say I was only ever the most casual of viewers. It was okay, very much what you
might expect of a BBC with one eye on the US (and the success of 24), having lost confidence in how to
make their own style of television. Spooks
could never really getting that the same kind of scale or conviction of
threat as its American cousins, which rather worked against it. At its worst,
it all looked rather silly, which undermined what was always the best aspect of
British spydom: the intrigue itself. Spooks:
The Greater Good, suffers from exactly the same problems.
It even has coloned title, taking its cues from the Mission: Impossible approach. Those films work (well, except for the
second one) because they are big, breathless, and have sufficient
self-awareness to rattle on through their essential ludicrousness and make that
a virtue. Spooks has no such luck; it's one nod to the less than earnest is a white cat as "evidence" of a suspect's villainy.
Even 24 (okay, I ducked out of the
last couple of seasons), which was desperately serious, generally succeeded by
detaching its lead character from reality. Jack Bauer would be successively
hurled into bubble realities where all he had to do was survive 40 minutes at a
time. Spooks is unable to escape its
limitations. Everything, from the roving camera mimicry to the thrall to London
landmarks, is asking to be scoffed at for presuming it can compete with the big
boys. Instead, when the umpteenth batch of terrorists arrive intent on blowing
up a landmark, it invites derision.
Spooks: The Greater
Good does understand, however, that the most convincing way to present the
intelligence services is to show them as inherently corrupt. In decades past,
this was always a result of moles, or the cynicism of those in command; today
it’s simply about corporate respect and branding. The makers know there’s
insufficient reason to buy into the threat from foreign powers; it’s a bit
passé. So, while The Greater Good comes replete with a stereotypical Middle Eastern
terrorist (one who can be manipulated on account of his wife; very Bauer-esque),
it can’t rely on that for sustenance. We the jaded public are so indifferent,
we’d more need convincing that the intelligence services weren’t nefarious and working against out best interests. As such,
there’s a notional recognition that out greatest enemy is really ourselves.
While that’s also there in Tinker Tailor
Soldier Spy, The Greater Good
offers merely lip service, or rather gloss. Surface detail, rather than
carefully hewn substance, and a wilful lack of political relevance.
The Greater Good
builds its plot on a series of half-baked tropes that don’t hold up for more
than several seconds when sweated under harsh lights. Instead of working from a
baseline of what British spy fare does well (John Le Carré,
Len Deighton) and building in a few grand set pieces, we’re asled to suffer a
series of WTFs. So someone in the MI-5 hierarchy allows terrorist Adem Qasim
(Elyes Gabel) to escape custody and the reason is… they want the agency to
collapse and be taken over by the CIA. As plot motivators go, it’s on the wispy
side. So too is stalwart Harry Pearce (Peter Firth), doing dodgy deals to get
to the bottom of this conspiracy. He goes so far overboard that he gives Qasim
the keys to intelligence community kingdom in exchange for calling off a
planned bombing (the prize Harry has requested before this is no easier to
swallow; a telephone number that may well be completely useless). It doesn’t
help that everything takes place with a thunderously straight face.
Harry’s the kind of maverick, hard-choices taking fellow intended
to function as a British Bauer. The guy who will make the sacrifices, take the
risks no one else can, because he believes the ends justify the means. Such
flagrant copying of the 24 modus
operandi would be all well and good if Harry could muster an ounce of Jack’s
grit and determination. Or even if he could merely summon the clipped severity
of a Le Carré spymaster. But Firth is a drab, stodgy presence, and as commanding as a custard eclair. Obviously, Spooks devotees will disagree, and as a
lead he’s admittedly more agreeable than someone as wet and non-present as
Clark Gregg in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
But that’s hardly an endorsement. It’s particularly a problem for a small
screen hero pumped up to movie size, where the attention is all on him. Firth
hasn’t had to deal with this kind of scrutiny since Lifeforce.
Helping Harry out is special guest young buck Game of Thrones guy Kit Harington as
Will Holloway. Will has history with Harry, inevitably of the “you knew my
father” variety, and the movie’s to-and-fro “Can I trust you or can’t I?” poise
quickly gets stale. The real question isn’t whether Will can trust Harry, it’s
why/how Harry is continually given licence to get up to all sorts of
unconscionable behaviour. Harington’s doing his best to score a succession of
movie roles to ensure his post-Thrones
longevity, but thus far they’ve been decidedly second-rate. He’s a likable
presence, but not a weighty one. If he can’t galvanise himself towards a
signature part equal to the agreeable Jon Snow, he’ll be consigned to
supporting roles in no time.
This is Bharat Nalluri’s fifth feature. It’s perhaps telling
that his best received is Mrs Pettigrew
Lives for a Day, decidedly not of
the action genre to which he has staked his name (including the third entry in The Crow series). He directed the Spooks pilot all the way back in 2002,
so they presumably thought they owed him. Nothing about the direction is bad
per se, but nothing about is more than standard issue for this kind of fare.
Lots of handheld camera, quick cutting etc.
To be fair to Nalluri, he has a
better sense of spatial geography than many who do this kind of thing, but he
can’t disguise the holes in the plot. The highlights are a chase round Heathrow
and a desperate attempt to eliminate a sniper during a meet, although blowing
up David Harewood and shooting TV regular Lara Pulver maintain the Spooks agenda for shock deaths (which makes
them less shocking, if you’re expecting them).
Jennifer Ehle is in there; she’s always note-perfect, it’s
just a shame the parts don’t tend to equal her talent. Tuppence Middleton is
surely a next-big-Brit-thing in Hollywood any day now, and plays the
questionable character line well until the writers fail her.
Really, the only
singularly great role is Tim McInnery’s sneering, MI-5 superior Mace. There’s a
touch of continuity here, as the character showed up in four episodes, the last
of which aired nearly a decade ago. Mace is everything Harry isn’t in terms of
viewer engagement. Rude, witty, abrasive, and even rather brave when it comes
down to it. McInnery would never be cast as the leading man, but if The Greater Good had focussed on him venting
spleen at wholly unsuspecting terrorists it might feasibly have been a great
movie.
It probably wasn’t a bad idea on paper to bring back Spooks. When there’s a chance of a TV
transition making a mint (like The
Inbetweeners), it could easily be regarded as a no-brainer. But Spooks: The Greater Good isn’t
sufficiently different. It’s borrowed writers from the last few seasons of the
show, and a director from the first few. As such, it follows the restrained
tradition of British big screen adaptations, rather than the flourish of US
ones. Which is exactly what the show didn’t
want to do at inception. It so desperately wanted to be our answer to their TV.
All the cinema incarnation has done is show that its characters (or more
particularly Harry) are ill suited to grand gestures. And that, for a British
spy movie on a budget to really engage, it needs to put its script foot forward
first, rather than striving for sub-Bond/Bourne spectacle.
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