Spooks: The Greater Good (Cinema Screening)

(spoiler free)

I have never watched the TV series Spooks before, I imagine it is basically a UK version of 24. I am a massive fan of 24 though and in time I do plan to explore the ten series that Spooks ran for. Anyway despite never having watched the series I thought that the film looked like it could be a solid spy flick so as a huge fan of this genre I was automatically on board.

Spooks: The Greater Good was a decent spy flick, it has its moments and it entertains throughout however there are a few issues that hold it back from being anything special. I wasn’t wholly convinced by several of the performances, basically I didn’t believe that these characters would actually be in the positions that they were. I wasn’t convinced of the reality of the story which caused me a few problems with engaging with the story. Kit Harington is a good actor however I don’t think he was well suited to this role, he couldn’t really lead the film. He usually plays characters from the past or fantasy worlds and he does that well but here he plays an MI5 agent in the present day and something just doesn’t quite click. I’m not sure if it is an issue of type casting or not but nonetheless I don’t think this is Harington’s best performance. Action comes hand in hand with the spy genre and unfortunately the action scenes here don’t ever meet their full potential. There were positives to them, which I will discuss too, however these scenes are never given enough time to breath and they always feel like they end prematurely meaning that there are no really memorable action set pieces in the movie.

Despite those flaws Spooks: The Greater Good still manages to be a success and it is a good film. The film certainly improves as the running time goes on, with two sequences towards the end being the highlights of the film. These scenes are full of suspense and tension, they engage the viewer in a way that the film hasn’t really done up to this point which brought a refreshing wave of intrigue to the audiences attention. There are interesting twists and turns throughout the movie and it allows the viewer time to try and work out the mystery as the characters do the same. The film has good pace, admittedly this could have been enhanced with better action scenes but regardless of this the film moved along nicely and it never dragged. There were some good performances as well, I thought Elyes Gabel portrayed his character well and made for a solid adversary. Amongst the MI5 entourage David Harewood easily stood out and was the most believable cast member of that group. All of these factors combined to make an overall good final product which this spy fan found enjoyable.

Spooks: The Greater Good never quite reaches the heights of the Bonds, Bournes or Mission Impossibles which have come before it however it is a vast improvement on some other more recent efforts such as Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. The movie gets better as it goes on and has an interesting story which involves the viewer, this works in its favour and makes up for the few issues that the film does face.

Rating – 7/10