{"id":14223,"date":"2016-04-09T03:15:52","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T08:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=14223"},"modified":"2016-04-09T03:15:52","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T08:15:52","slug":"spy-movie-review-the-night-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/09\/spy-movie-review-the-night-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"Spy Movie Review: The Night Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

First of all, let me say even though this series does not premiere in the U.S. until April 19th, I have already watched this entire 6-part series since it premiered in the U.K this past winter. I liked it, but don’t go into it expecting a straight laced Espionage thriller. It is more of a “Modern Crime” drama with a international twist. In reality, I liked the characters more than the plot ultimately. Hugh Laurie (House) was awesome as usual and although I was not familiar with Tom Hiddleston, I was really impressed by his lead performance. I was also really pleased to see Tom Hollander and Olivia Colman in supporting roles as I am huge fans of both. As many of you know, Hollander \u00a0is no stranger to spy\/action thrillers himself, playing in Hannah and Valkyrie to name a couple of note. Anyway below is a decent review from OZY. -SF<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"NM1\"<\/p>\n

For those of you \u2014 like me \u2014 who love your Ken Loach Northern v\u00e9rit\u00e9 stories as much as your Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes<\/em> episodes, AMC and the BBC\u2019s $30 million, glittering new John le Carr\u00e9 adaptation, The Night Manager, <\/em>is something of a bracing departure. It\u2019s an espionage show<\/a> that echoes \u2014 in both production value and style \u2014 a wider shift in British society broadly and television specifically. It\u2019s a change I find fascinating and more than a bit sad.<\/p>\n

In a six-part miniseries,The Night Manager <\/em>follows a youngish British army veteran, Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston), as he transitions from directionless hotelier to seasoned, ruthless undercover intelligence agent operating at the heart of an international arms syndicate (with Hugh Laurie as an arms dealer) in bed with MI6. Intelligence speak (MI6 HQ is reverently referred to as \u201cThe River House\u201d) flies as Pine leads us on a breakneck tour of Europe\u2019s finest hotels and beachfront villas. There\u2019s a sense of having one\u2019s face pressed against the glass with this show, manifest in Pine\u2019s controller, the dowdy, disillusioned, overworked, underpaid Angela Burr (Olivia Colman.)<\/p>\n

There are plausibility issues: All this \u201cseasoning\u201d happens in a span of some 90 days, first of all. Then there\u2019s the rampant use of cell phones, and the way in which the main character spends like Kanye with Kim\u2019s Am Ex. We consulted OZY\u2019s spy-in-residence, John McLaughlin<\/a>, former deputy director and acting director of the CIA and a teacher at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. \u201cExpert and well-trained intelligence operatives have learned through bitter experience not to communicate openly on cell phones and email about operational matters,\u201d he says. \u201cThey have to worry constantly that they might be under surveillance and therefore subject to monitoring. They have to find other, clandestine, ways to communicate \u2014 particularly with their agents.\u201d As for spies as big spenders, McLaughlin points to CIA traitor Aldrich Ames, who had been spying for the Russians<\/a> and was arrested in 1994. \u201cIntelligence agencies have to be careful not to pay agents too much for fear that they will spend lavishly and draw attention to themselves and thus risk detection,\u201d McLaughlin says. \u201cThis was a big clue that gave Ames away.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for all The Night Manager<\/em>\u2019s interest in governmental corruption, war crimes, NGOs as Trojan Horses, lavish hotels and beachfront properties, the show\u2019s greatest insight is the glimpse at the changing landscape of British TV. The BBC (and, for years, the now-departed Granada TV) churned out period pieces and social dramas that celebrated a kind of chintz-and-biscuits Englishness where the response to every crisis was to \u201cput the kettle on\u201d or \u201cget stuck in.\u201d But with the modernization of the Bond film series into a kind of muscular, jet-setting explosion-fest \u2014 a change that mirrors London\u2019s own transformation from the beautifully ruined, damp, smoke-filled dump of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy<\/em> into the global capital of finance and playpen of the superrich \u2014 the BBC has plumped for Bond over Kes<\/em>, for Canary Wharf over Tyneside.<\/p>\n