Black Doves (2024) – Pulp Trashy Fun
Genre – Spy (Crime?) Action Time: 6 x 55 minutes episodes Platform: Netflix Cast: Keira Knightly. Ben Whishaw. Sarah Lancashire. Andrew Buchan. You don’t like serious stuff. You want your entertainment clean and without any great philosophy about the nature of spies and spying. In short you want gunfights, explosions and witty dialogues. In…
Read MoreLeave the World Behind (2023) – Digital 9/11?
Clickable links in red Director: Sam Esmail Cast: Julia Roberts. Mahershala Ali. Ethan Hawke. Myha’la. Kevin Bacon. Farrah Mackenzie. Charlie Evans. Duration: 2 hours 18 minutes Platform: Netflix. You are reading this probably on your mobile or on your laptop browser. Everything is fine. Your network is good. Your Internet Plan is fantastic…
Read MoreHopscotch (1980) – Delightful
Clickable links in red. Genre – Spy Movie + comedy Time: 1 Hour , 45 minutes Platform: You Tube – Free Director: Ronald Neame Cast: Walter Mathau. Glenda Jackson. Ned Beatty. Sam Waterston. Herbert Lom. Delightful is not a word that one would normally use when the subject is a spy movie. But…
Read MoreCitadel Honey Bunny – Predictable
Genre – Spy + Action Time: 6 episodes x average 50 minutes each Platform: Amazon Prime Let’s start with some disclaimers. First: I haven’t seen the ‘other’ Citadel series due to which I miss/am unaware of the connection between ‘those’ and the constant references to Citadel ‘here’. The others – from some online…
Read MorePrime Suspect (1982) – Trial by media
Clickable link in red Dir: Noel Black Cast: Mike Farrell. Teri Garr. Veronica Cartwright. Time: 1 hour, 32 minutes Platform: You Tube (Free) Innocent until proven guilty is the basic rule supposedly followed by law enforcement agencies worldwide. Which is why, there are things like courts and lawyers to determine whether an accused…
Read MoreThe Americans 2013 – 2017 – Fascinating
All clickable links in red Genre – Spy Movie Time: 6 Seasons. 5 seasons x 13 episodes x average 45 minutes. 6th season – 10 episodes x average 40 minutes Platform: Disney Hotstar Illegals and Russia – a “mini history”: In June 2010, ten Illegals were arrested by the FBI’s counter…
Read MoreThe Old Man. Season 1 (2022). Season 2 (2024) – The Past is Never Dead and Buried
Genre: Spy Movie Time: 7 episodes x average 50 minutes Platform: Disney Hotstar SEASON 1 “You get to be my age in this business and one way or another, you will have something personal with just about everyone”. “Better way is to keep things buried in the ground than to wish them…
Read MoreHell in the Pacific (1968) – A unique film
Clickable links in red Genre – War Movie Time: 1 Hour, 43 minutes Platform: You Tube Free Director: John Boorman. Cast: Lee Marvin. Toshiro Mifune. There are war movies and then there is Hell in the Pacific. A unique film with ONLY two characters onscreen. The American cannot speak Japanese while the Japanese…
Read MoreEast (2020) – Unique film on a forgotten war
Genre – War Movie (based on true events) Time: 2 Hours 20 minutes Platform: Amazon Prime Language: Dutch Historical background: World War 2 showed to the colonial subjects that their Colonial Masters were not a hundred feet tall and could be defeated. This was especially so in the Asian colonies,…
Read MoreUlajh (2024) – Dull and Uneven
Clickable links in red Genre – Spy + Conspiracy thriller Time: 2 Hours, 8 minutes Platform: NetFlix Director: Sudhanshu Saria Cast: Janhvi Kapoor. Roshan Mathew. Gulshan Devaiah. Many spy thrillers commonly talk of honey trapping which is sexually entrapping a male and blackmailing him to obtain secrets. The opposite of that is…
Read MoreThe Veil (2024) – Contemporary but …
Director: Daina Reid. Damon Thomas (3 episodes each) Genre: Spy thriller Time: TV series – 6 x 55-minute episodes Platform: Disney + Hotstar Cast: Elisabeth Moss. Yumna Marwan. Dali Benssalah. Imogen Salter (Elisabeth Moss) is an MI6 operative who takes down rogue traders. She is sent to a refugee camp on…
Read MoreBerlin (2023) – Brilliant slow burn
Genre: Spy Story Time: 1 Hour 50 minutes Platform: Zee 5 Writer Director: Atul Sabharwal Cast: Aparshakti Kurana. Rahul Bose. Ishwak Singh. People have complaints, and my favorite is that the James Bond franchise has distorted people’s perception of spy films. If pressed, they will reluctantly concede that while it’s not real, it’s great…
Read MoreIC814 – Gripping
ALL CLICKABLE LINKS IN RED Genre – Drama (true story) Time: 6 episodes x 45 minutes Platform: Netflix Language: Hindi Director: Abhinav Sinha On a monday morning in 2003, one of my colleagues came back after watching a movie and joyfully said “I saw a great movie.” Zameen”. I went goggle eyed…
Read MoreIll Met by Moonlight (1957) aka Night Ambush – Unbelievable but true
All clickable links in red Genre – War Movie (true story) Time: 1 Hours 30 minutes Platform: You Tube Director: Michael Powell, Emrich Pressburger Powell and Pressburger, forged their collaboration during World War 2, as they produced war propaganda films, including the wartime classic 49th Parallel (1941). Their films epitomize British cinema and…
Read MoreFirefox (1982) – How Clint Won The Cold War!
Clickable links in red Director: Clint Eastwood Genre: Spy cum techno Thriller Time: 1 Hour 57 minutes Platform: Amazon Prime (rent) Cast: Clint Eastwood. Freddie Jones It is 1980 and The Cold War is intensifying. Both sides are intensifying the race to create deadlier weapons. British Intelligence obtains information that the Soviet Union…
Read MoreThe Assassination of Trotsky (1972) – Interesting
All clickable links in red Director: Joseph Losey Genre: Spy Drama (True Story) Time: 1 Hour 38 minutes Platform: You Tube Cast: Richard Burton. Alain Delon. Romy Schneider. French Superstar Alain Delon, personified French cool in his best period during the 1960s and 1970s, where he played a wide range of interesting roles that ranged…
Read MoreNorth by Northwest (1959) – Classic Hitchcock
All clickable links in red Director: Alfred Hitchcock Genre: Spy thriller Time: 2 Hours 16 minutes Cast: Cary Grant. Eva Marie Saint. James Mason. Martin Landau. Platform: Amazon Prime Rent As mentioned in my post on Notorious (see here), Alfred Hitchcock made 11 spy movies, which were marketed as suspense thrillers. Hitchcock’s films are…
Read MoreDanger Close (2019) – War is hell
All clickable links in red Genre – War Movie (true story) Time: 2 Hours Platform: Amazon Prime Director: Kriv Stenders. Platform : Amazon Prime Whenever we think of the Vietnam War, the popular image is the American image, with helicopters ferrying troops, US air force combat planes blasting and napalming jungles and pictures of various…
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