All the Old Knives – Film Review
Published April 11, 2022
Movie Details
When the CIA discovers one of its agents leaked information that cost more than 100 people their lives, veteran operative Henry Pelham (Chris Pine) is assigned to root out the mole from among his former officemates at the agency’s Vienna station. His investigation takes him from Austria to England to California, where he is reunited with his one-time colleague and ex-lover Celia Harrison (Thandiwe Newton). The pair are forced to blur the lines between profession and passion in this riveting tale of global espionage, moral ambiguity, and deadly betrayal.
Ah, there’s nothing quite like a good old fashioned espionage film. It seems like it’s been ages since we’ve been graced with one, which is why I was quite eager to check out Janus Metz Pedersen‘s All the Old Knives. An interesting premise? Check. A sleek, badass title? Check. Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton? Check. What could go wrong?
Well, as it turns out, a lot, actually. All the Old Knives is a disappointingly boring, predictable, and all-too-familiar spy thriller that doesn’t really have much to say that hasn’t been said already. The vast majority of the film feels like a strange cross between James Bond and some bizarre crime drama. It just doesn’t work.
The script from Olen Steinhauer gets incredibly old incredibly fast. The first twenty minutes or so of the film are legitimately interesting as we watch Pine and Newton’s mysterious characters get introduced, leaving us to wonder who they both are and what purpose they’ll serve in the story.
Sadly, once we get a good grasp on who those two are and what their characters are meant to be doing for the remainder of the movie, the film gets extremely stale, even if both Pine and Newton deliver excellent performances and have marvelous chemistry with one another in the roles of Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, respectively.
There are occasional glimmers of greatness injected into the movie, particularly in the third act when things start to get a little juicier, but that means that the first two acts that came before it are bland and boring. Even people who watch this movie and end up liking it will surely find themselves struggling with a rewatch.
The movie is mostly dull and is the furthest thing from sharp, but that doesn’t make it awful. I didn’t hate myself when watching All the Old Knives – I just wished I was watching something a whole lot better. Come on Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton, your amazing talents are needed elsewhere.