'Courier' is worth admission price

 

Yay!  The movies are back!

It's not the greatest spy movie I've ever seen but it will do in these days of entertainment starvation.  Especially after wasting time and money on the austere, the horrible, the boring Nomadland.

At the same movie house on a Saturday night at the same show time, the audience had swelled to about 25 from the poor audience showing for Nomadland.  

Carla, I think Thor will like The Courier. It's based on a true-life tale of a British spy ring working to obtain Soviet Union  nuclear secrets which preceded the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Merab Ninidze, left, is Soviet spy, Oleg Penkovsky, who transmits secrets to The Courier, Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch, right).

Dickie Franks (Angus Wright) and Emily Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan) are wooden and robotic government agents who recruit the where-am-I? salesman Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) to transmit secrets from the Soviet Union. 

Starting the action is information supplied by Soviet double-agent, Oleg Penkovsky, portrayed by Merab Ninidze who steals the show. Besides Mr. Cumberbatch, he's the only one who legitimately conveys his character with aplomb, however, Vladimir Olegovich Chuprikov does a good job as Nikita Krushchev.  The rest of the cast is generally lifeless.

In another time and place, The Courier likely would not gain as many nods as it is receiving now, but this is now, and not then or when.

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