The Courier (2020) is an English movie directed by Dominic Cooke. The film takes place during the height of the Cold War.

It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Greville Wynne, a middle-class mid-level British business man. Oleg Penkovsky, portrayed by Mereb Ninindze, is a high-ranking Soviet official who knows that there's a real chance of nuclear war.

British intelligence recruits Wynne to make a connection with Penkovsky. His job will be to bring back important information that will help the western powers. Rachel Brosnahan portrays a U. S. CIA agent who is working with British intelligence.

The film succeeds or fails on the work of Cumberbatch. He's a superb actor, and the movie falls into place on the basis of his acting. (In fairness, he's such a competent actor that I had a little trouble accepting him as a less-than-competent businessman.) Ninindze does good work, but I had trouble accepting Brosnahan as a CIA agent. (Mrs. Maisel, yes. CIA, no.) For the record, I also had trouble with the basic assumption that the CIA agents were the good guys.

This movie provides an intense, claustrophobic experience. It's very well done, but at the other end of the spectrum from James Bond spy movies. We saw this film on the small screen, where it worked well. It has a barely adequate IMDb rating of 7.1. I thought that it was better than that, and rated it 8.

Benedict Cumberbatch stars with Rachel Brosnahan, Zelijko Ivanek, and Merab Nindze) in "The Courier" from 2021.

The film takes place around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Anyone who lived through it knows it was a terrifying time. MI6 receives correspondence from a Russian colonel, Oleg Penovsky, who has information that makes him concerned that Khruschev is about to start a nuclear war.

Two people from MI6 (Brosnahan and Ivanek) recruit a businessman, Greville Wynne (Cumberbatch) to go to Russia as part of his business and begin to build accounts there. That's all he has to do, and he's given a special tie clip to wear. This is so he can be recognized by the colonel (Nindze).

The two become friends, and set up a clever way so that Penovsky can slip him photos that Wynne brings back to the states. Wynne's frequent trips cause him problems at home with his wife and son. Meanwhile, the Russians have missiles in Cuba aimed at strategic spots in the U. S.

This is based on a true story, and this film has everything - great acting, suspense, drama, and one of the most incredible scenes ever filmed toward the end. Cumberbatch is brilliant. He has the most dramatic role and boy, does he live up to it. Merab Ninidze as his Russian contact is wonderful, and the two men have good chemistry together.

This film will stay with you after it's over.

Real life stories can be tricky. In the horror genre they can fail miserably ... in the War scenarios or spy and real people stories, it does look differently though. Like with this one. And while I reckon one could argue that side characters feel shallow or one dimensional (the wives for example), I'd argue there is not enough time to get and have everyone have their moment.

Still the British wife we have here, does have some zingers and you can really feel her pain and understand her anxiety over all that is happening. Even if she has the wrong idea of what is going on. Having said all that, the actors are fantastic and the tension is really holding up throughout ... you may know where this is going (and what happened with Cuba and the missilie crisis), but it won't take anything away from what we see on screen.