Director: Bharat Nalluri
Starring: Peter Firth, Kit Harrington, Jennifer Ehle, Elyes Gabel, Tim McInnerny, Tuppence Middleton
Certificate: 15
Special Features: ‘Making-of’ featurettes / Interviews with cast and crew / Trailer
When watching Spooks The Greater Good, three big questions spring to mind;
1. Will it make sense to those of us who have never seen the show?
2. Can I say the film title without quoting Hot Fuzz? (The greater gooooood…)
3. Will Kit Harrington notice me?
The answers are yes, just about and no.
The film itself is fine, and therein lies the problem. It’s a perfectly acceptable, well shot and finely edited piece of moderate entertainment with good character development, tense action sequences and strong performances. It would have made a fantastic feature length special on TV but it absolutely doesn’t need to be a theatrical film. It is neither full-on action adventure like Bond nor a gripping spy thriller like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It falls between two stools and ends up like a sort of made-for-TV Bourne knock-off.
Peter Firth reprises his role as agent Harry Pearce and is the main link back to the original TV show. After Harry goes off the grid to find the saboteur in his own agency, he enlists the help of Will Holloway (Kit Harrington) and together they must also stop charismatic terrorist Adem Qasim (Elyes Gabel), but in this deadly game of cat and mouse, who can you really trust? If that formulaic synopsis made you think of half a dozen spy movies, that goes some way to explaining how by-the-numbers Spooks (The Greater Goooooood) is. That’s not to say it isn’t fun and occasionally gripping; the sniper sequence on Waterloo Bridge is a stand out moment. It’s just nothing we haven’t seen before. The unique hook is perhaps that the villainous Qasim is more rounded than most screen terrorists as he is by no means the shrieking Jihadist thumbnail sketch that he might have been in less able hands. As the old saying goes; one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter and the script by Jonathan Brackley and Sam Vincent certainly make Sadiq’s motives more human and (whisper it) rational. This creates a far more compelling antagonist, played with surprising poignancy by Gabel, and raises some interesting points about morality.
Firth is fine if unremarkable as Pearce and has notably strong support from Tim McInnerny, Jennifer Ehle and Tuppence Middleton, who keep their ethics and allegiances teasingly ambiguous. But there is no doubt that the selling point is Harrington as emo-Bourne Will Holloway. It’s nice to see young Kit in a modern setting with nary a sword in sight. He shows real potential as a Hollywood leading man; his brooding intensity coupled with a lightness of touch. While he doesn’t set the world on fire here, he does make the jump from TV star to silver screen leading man with great success. Maybe one day, the whole film will be seen as Harrington’s audition for James Bond.
While Spooks The Greater Good is as forgettable as it is unoriginal, it is an entertaining and engaging affair that stands up on its own and is sure to please fans of the show. Its central themes of loyalty and morality give it more depth than the average spy thriller but it remains, very much, an average spy thriller.
Spooks The Greater Good is out on Blu-ray and DVD on September 28 in the UK. Pre-order here!
