The Courier | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Dominic Cooke |
Written by | Tom O’Connor |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Sean Bobbitt |
Edited by |
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Music by | Abel Korzeniowski |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | |
Release dates |
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Running time | 111 minutes [1] |
Countries |
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Language | English |
Box office | $26 million [2] |
The Courier is a 2020 historical spy film directed by Dominic Cooke and written by Tom O'Connor. The film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Greville Wynne, and is based on the true story of a British businessman who was recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service to be a message conduit with Russian spy source Oleg Penkovsky (played by Merab Ninidze) in the 1960s. [3] Rachel Brosnahan, Jessie Buckley, and Angus Wright also star.
The Courier had its world premiere under its original title Ironbark at the Sundance Film Festival on 24 January 2020, and was theatrically released in the United States on 19 March 2021, and the United Kingdom on 13 August 2021. The film received generally favourable reviews from critics.
In 1960, Oleg Penkovsky, a high ranking Soviet official and GRU intelligence officer with access to top secret nuclear information, is disillusioned with Khrushchev's leadership in light of the growing threat of a nuclear war with the United States. He reaches out to the CIA and offers to provide information that could help de-escalate the situation. The CIA and MI6 decide that it would be better not to use an officer and instead have an ordinary businessman act as an intermediary.
They approach salesman Greville Wynne to go to Moscow under the pretense of exploring commercial opportunities. Wynne establishes seemingly normal business relations with Penkovsky and the latter makes arrangements with western intelligence agencies to feed them information. He asks that they continue to use Wynne as their regular courier, reasoning that he will be under the Soviets' radar. Initially opposed to the task, Wynne eventually agrees, partly after CIA officer Emily Donovan emphasizes that his efforts could help prevent a nuclear war and also after Penkovsky visits him at his home and tells him that he is betting his life on Wynne's success.
Wynne uses his business travels to Moscow to regularly carry messages and packages provided by Penkovsky to the CIA. However, this takes a toll on his personal life, where he starts behaving agitatedly, leading his wife to think that he may be having an affair.
Penkovsky learns that the Soviets want to turn Cuba into a nuclear threat to the United States, and relays this information, along with photographs and military plans to the CIA, who eventually verify this using their own intelligence. The Americans are able to use this early lead to their advantage during the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, the Soviets, using their own double agents, realize they have an information vulnerability. In Moscow, Wynne realizes that his hotel room had been searched, but leaves the country before he has a chance to warn Penkovsky.
Worried about Penkovsky's fate should he be left behind, Wynne volunteers against the advice of MI6 to go back to Moscow to help arrange Penkovsky's defection. However, the Soviets, having previously poisoned Penkovsky and searched his belongings while he was in the hospital, foil the plan and arrest both men.
Wynne is sent to prison where he endures harsh conditions which results in his health significantly deteriorating. He adamantly maintains his innocence, claiming that he knew Penkovsky only as a business client, and did not know what was in the packages he had delivered. Several months later, he is allowed a visit from his wife, who tells him that the Soviets have removed their missiles from Cuba, boosting his morale. He also gets to meet Penkovsky in prison while being interrogated, and tells him that his sacrifice was worth it and the two men emotionally clutch hands.
In April 1964, Wynne is released in exchange for the Soviet spy Konon Molody and returns to London. It is also revealed that Penkovsky was tried and executed for treason, and buried in an unmarked grave, but with his family being allowed to live in Moscow. The U.S. and Soviets also establish a communications hotline between their leaders to prevent future nuclear disasters.
On 1 May 2018, it was announced that FilmNation Entertainment was producing Ironbark, a film about British spy Greville Wynne from a script by Tom O’Connor. Dominic Cooke was set to direct the film and produce alongside O’Connor, Ben Pugh, Rory Aitken, Adam Ackland, Josh Varney, and Leah Clarke. Production companies involved with the film include SunnyMarch. [3] [4] [5] [6]
Alongside the initial production announcement, it was confirmed that Benedict Cumberbatch had been cast as Greville Wynne. [3] In October 2018, it was announced that Rachel Brosnahan, Jessie Buckley, Merab Ninidze, Angus Wright, and Kirill Pirogov had joined the cast of the film. [7] [8]
Principal photography for the film commenced in London on 15 October 2018 and it lasted until 7 December 2018. [9] [10]
Abel Korzeniowski composed the score and Lakeshore Records released the soundtrack on 19 March 2021. [11]
Track listing and credits adapted from Soundtrack.Net. [12]
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "Spies and Typewriters" | 2:23 |
2. | "Iron Curtain" | 2:22 |
3. | "First Contact" | 2:01 |
4. | "Greville" | 1:34 |
5. | "Secret Meeting" | 2:15 |
6. | "Prelude" | 1:30 |
7. | "It Has to Be You" | 3:06 |
8. | "Eyes of the State" | 2:07 |
9. | "Cigarettes" | 2:08 |
10. | "Cuban Missiles" | 1:05 |
11. | "Our Last Trip to Moscow" | 4:02 |
12. | "I Have a Light Day" | 1:18 |
13. | "Trenchcoats vs. KGB" | 3:04 |
14. | "Arrested" | 2:25 |
15. | "Cold Soup" | 2:11 |
16. | "Breakdown" | 1:32 |
17. | "When You Come Home" | 1:04 |
18. | "Maybe We Are Only Two People" | 4:40 |
Total length: | 40:47 |
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 24 January 2020, under the title Ironbark. [13] Shortly after, Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film. [14] Under the new name The Courier, the film was given an original 28 August 2020 theatrical release in the United States. [15] However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was delayed to 16 October 2020. [16] It was scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom on 30 October 2020. [17] It was delayed again to 19 March 2021, [18] and was eventually released on 13 August 2021.
The Courier grossed $6.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $19.4 million elsewhere, for a worldwide total of $26 million. [2]
In its domestic opening weekend, the film grossed $1.9 million from 1,433 theaters in its opening weekend, finishing third at the box office. [19] The film made $1 million in its second weekend. [20]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 85% based on 214 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "The Courier delivers a rousingly effective old-school spy adventure elevated by a thrilling fact-based story and Benedict Cumberbatch's nervy central performance." [21] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on reviews from 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [22] According to PostTrak, 82% of audience members gave the film a positive score, with 62% saying they would definitely recommend it. [19]
The Washington Post 's Ann Hornaday gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying: "The Courier makes a smart, stylish stand for the kind of old-fashioned period spy thriller that is increasingly being turned into bingeable series for streaming services. Its modesty and carefully managed ambitions define its strong suit at a time when such films are scarcer every day." [23] Peter Debruge of Variety called the film "solid if dull-by-definition espionage story" and said: "[The Courier's] hook is that it's based on true events, and the underlying history deserves to be shared." [24]
Merab Ninidze was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 2020 British Independent Film Awards. [25]
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (rezident) and bureau chief in London.
Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, codenamed Hero and Yoga was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Penkovsky informed the United States and the United Kingdom about Soviet military secrets, including the appearance and footprint of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile installations and the weakness of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program. This information was decisive in allowing the US to recognize that the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba before most of them were operational. It also gave US President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis that followed, valuable information about Soviet weakness that allowed him to face down Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and resolve the crisis without a nuclear war.
Greville Maynard Wynne was a British engineer and businessman recruited by MI6 because of his frequent travel to Eastern Europe. He acted as a courier to transport top-secret information to London from the Soviet agent Oleg Penkovsky.
Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch is an English actor. Known for his work on screen and stage, he has received various accolades, including a BAFTA TV Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Laurence Olivier Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and four Golden Globes. In 2014, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2015, he was appointed a CBE for services to performing arts and charity.
The Portland spy ring was an espionage group active in the UK between 1953 and 1961. It comprised five people who obtained classified research documents from the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment (AUWE) on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, and passed them to the Soviet Union.
Konon Trofimovich Molody was a Soviet intelligence officer, known in the West as Gordon Arnold Lonsdale. Posing as a Canadian businessman during the Cold War, he was a non-official (illegal) KGB intelligence agent and the mastermind of the Portland spy ring, which operated in Britain from the late 1950s until 1961.
George Kisevalter was an American operations officer of the CIA, who handled Major Pyotr Popov, the first Soviet GRU officer run by the CIA. He had some involvement with Soviet intelligence Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, active in the 1960s, who had more direct relations with British MI-6.
Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko was a putative KGB officer who ostensibly defected to the United States in 1964. Controversy arose as to whether or not he was a KGB "plant," and he was held in detention by the CIA for over three years. Eventually, he was deemed a true defector. After his release he became an American citizen and worked as a consultant and lecturer for the CIA.
Roadside Attractions, LLC is an American production company and film distributor based in Los Angeles, California, founded on July 27, 2000, by Howard Cohen and Eric d'Arbeloff, specializing largely in independent films. Lionsgate bought a portion of Roadside in 2007.
There is a long history of close cooperation between the United States and the United Kingdom intelligence services; see Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action for World War II and subsequent relationships. There are permanent liaison officers of each country in major intelligence agencies of the other, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Secret Intelligence Service ("MI6"), FBI and the Security Service (MI5), and National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). From 1943 to 2017, the Open Source Enterprise, a division of the CIA, was run out of Caversham Park in Reading, Berkshire. American officials worked closely with their British counterparts to monitor foreign TV and radio broadcasts, as well as online information.
Nuclear Secrets, aka Spies, Lies and the Superbomb, is a 2007 BBC Television docudrama series which looks at the race for nuclear supremacy from the Manhattan Project through to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.
Dominic Cooke is an English director and writer.
Merab Ninidze is a Georgian actor. In the English-speaking world, he is best known for the roles of Walter Redlich in Nowhere in Africa and Oleg Penkovsky in The Courier.
The Imitation Game is a 2014 American period biographical thriller film directed by Morten Tyldum and written by Graham Moore, based on the 1983 biography Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges.
Rachel Brosnahan is an American actress. She is best known for playing the title role of an aspiring stand-up comedian in the Amazon Prime Video period comedy series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017–2023), for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2018 and two consecutive Golden Globe Awards in 2018 and 2019. She has also appeared in the political thriller series House of Cards (2013–2015) and the drama series Manhattan (2014–2015).
Jack Strong is a 2014 Polish political thriller film directed by Władysław Pasikowski, starring Marcin Dorociński, Maja Ostaszewska, Dagmara Dominczyk and Patrick Wilson. The film is based on the true story of Ryszard Kukliński, a Polish People's Army colonel who spied for the American Central Intelligence Agency during the height of the Cold War.
Danny Ramirez is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Wes in The Gifted, Mario Martinez in On My Block, Joaquin Torres in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Lt. Mickey "Fanboy" Garcia in Top Gun: Maverick (2022).
Treadstone is an American action drama television series, connected to and based on the Bourne film series. A "special preview" of the pilot aired on USA Network on September 24, 2019, ahead of its October 15, 2019, premiere. The series was created by Tim Kring, who is also the executive producer alongside Ramin Bahrani, Ben Smith, Jeffrey Weiner, Justin Levy, Bradley Thomas, and Dan Friedkin. Treadstone received generally mixed reviews from critics and in May 2020, the series was canceled after one season.
Tennent Harrington Bagley was a high-level CIA counterintelligence officer who worked against the KGB during the Cold War. He is best known for having been the case officer and principal interrogator of controversial KGB defector Yuri Nosenko who claimed a couple of months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that the KGB had nothing to do with the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, during the two-and-one-half years Oswald lived in the USSR.