The Courier

If you had knowledge of something terrible on the horizon would you try and stop it even if it meant your own life would be ruined? Most of us wouldn't. We'd put our heads down, chug along and let the inevitable guilt eat us alive. Only the rarefied few will ever stand tall, step out of line and risk it. The Courier is the true story of one such person. But that person isn't the one on the film posters you'll see.

It's the early 1960's. The cold war is in full effect. Soviet - US relations are on a knife edge. Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), a Russian official with access to very sensitive information about the USSR's nuclear capabilities is worried about the future and an unstable leader with access to world ending weaponry. He decides to leak the information to the west and the MI5 in conjunction with the CIA hire Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch), an ordinary businessman who sells machinery to factories, to travel to Moscow and meet with Oleg under cover of work, so they can swap info which Greville will then smuggle out. The two men become fast friends and when Oleg travels to Britain he forms a bond with Greville's wife Sheila (Jessie Buckley) too. But all good things must come to an end and when Greville's frequent trips catch the eye of the KGB, well let's just say......

At times The Courier feels like a love story about two men keeping their forbidden romance a secret. Terse looks, secret hotel room rendezvous, conversations where every word is loaded. But you'll soon realise it feels like that because you're worried about them both and for good reason. The stakes are massive, the Brit might go to the gulag but the Russian faces a point blank bullet, they've families who's lives will be ruined, their actions if discovered could trigger all out war but it's mostly because Merab Ninidze and Benedict Cumberbatch are so damn good in their parts. Merab, warm and relaxed on the outside but riddled with anxiety within, Cumberbatch, with a nervy and oh so proper exterior but fun loving when he's not on edge. Together their friendship works, built on vodka and ballet. It gives the film an emotional core that makes it's suspense really work. When you give a fuck you'll give a fuck, you know.

Then a decision is made two thirds of the way through the film to sideline Oleg, the hero of the story in favour of Greville. Cumberbatch, the film's big star takes centre stage and as the film takes a dark turn, we lose the chemistry built and the dramatic fizz of the first 80 minutes of the film is stripped away. Oleg is barely glimpsed again and in a story decision that feels genuinely disrespectful, gets a postscript just before the credits roll. Cumberbatch tries (his physical transformation is unsettling) but the film never really recovers when it's just about him. But at least our own Jessie Buckley gets a look in at this point, having been mostly ignored up to now, with a stiff upper lip filled conversation that will remind you of how good she can be.

The Courier is a handsomely mounted and very well acted production that excels by taking an intimate look at a crazy era in history. Partly set during the Cuban missile crisis, it takes a terrifying time and places it firmly in the background of the story, choosing to focus in on a very unlikely but rewarding relationship. If only it didn't choose to ignore half of that friendship in it's most vital moments.

The Courier is out in cinemas from tomorrow.