The November Man Is Nothing Like Bond...

...Still that won't stop the ad department from repeatedly trying to hit you over the head with the connections. But at the end of the day, Pierce Brosnan (with a gun) and Olga Kurylenko are the only real connections back to the biggest spy franchise of all time. This is not a bad thing, just something you should take note of before going to see the movie.

Essentially, Brosnan takes off his MI6 hat and dons a much bleaker CIA persona. He plays a retired secret agent who is all too suddenly called back into the fray to deal with some unfinished business from his past. The script's actually pretty interesting however as the focus quickly turns away from many of the usual tropes of such a story and attempts to be much more about existing in the world after having become a killer. Once you make enough concessions can you actually ever return to society? Can you still claim to be human?

This is nothing compared to his performance in The Matador, but it's still quite fun to watch Brosnan return to the genre that most made him famous. Olga Kurylenko is really cool to watch as well, and it's weird to try and draw comparisons between her role in this film and that of Quantum of Solace. She's very beautiful and not a bad actress to boot.

Luke Bracey was pretty solid too as Brosnan's one time apprentice. Though for some reason I couldn't stop thinking about how much he looks like a young Sean Bean...

There are some very serious weaknesses to this film however. Some of the fight sequences are waaay too oversold to the point that I honestly stopped caring that there was even action going on on screen... actually I really couldn't even tell. What I mean by that is, when a film jumps into slow-motion for things that are less than amazing, it's difficult to respect the filmmaker's decision making. And that may be just the very point... Roger Donaldson's direction kind of bored me. I really like the work he did on The World's Fastest Indian, and The Bank Job was shockingly watchable. But most of the other flicks on his filmography fall into the category of "don't need to watch again" ... or rather the "I get it already" sub genre of features.

Now I'm not trying to turn you away, in fact I think it would be kind of cool if more people came out to watch this one. But frankly, I'd be lying if I called The November Man "a must see."