Review of The Courier
midlandsmovies • August 11, 2021
The Courier (2021) Dir. Dominic Cooke
Four years after his directorial debut On Chesil Beach, director Dominic Cooke’s follow up film heads into far darker territory with his new historical spy thriller The Courier.
Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Greville Wynne, a real-life British engineer and businessman recruited by MI6 because of his regular travel to Eastern Europe. Wynne subsequently becomes a courier who transports top-secret information to London from Soviet agent Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) during the early 1960s.
Cumberbatch is often his usual awkward self in this film and when the intelligence services see his business as the perfect cover for their illicit missions, he dutifully steps up. But he keeps his true intentions from his loyal wife (Jessie Buckley as patient Sheila Wynne).
In order to gain intelligence about Soviet missiles being transported to Cuba, his multiple trips start to attract attention and his surveillance tasks become increasingly dangerous. The gentle Englishman is placed into precarious situations which begin to take their toll, not just on his own life but that of his wife and child.
Yet despite their safeguards, the two spies are investigated themselves and finally caught by the authorities and charged with treason. Whilst Penkovsky admits his betrayal, he attempts to protect his double-dealing ally by claiming Wynne knew nothing.
The final act delivers a more demoralising tone with Cumberbatch embodying – or changing his body into – a husk of a human to reflect the meagre resources in the strict Siberian prison he’s sent to. It’s a real gut punch that contrasts starkly against the more regular Cold War drama sequences seen up until to this point.
He does a convincing “Bale” to physically capture an inmate’s emaciated state, becoming a hollow and broken man. Yet, he plays Wynne well with a sort of stoic soul, perhaps the only way anyone could ever get through the inhumane treatment he faces.
Some may know the true-life tale but it’s not dissatisfying to discover the story ends mostly on a high rather than a low conclusion. The film illuminates a little-known, but hugely important, aspect of history where one man’s individual strength became the catalyst that prevented possible global conflicts.
Audiences therefore should definitely take a snoop at The Courier. As although it’s not a game-changer, it’s a great espionage drama with a terrific Cumberbatch central performance as a small-scale man hiding big-time secrets.
★★★★
Michael Sales
Up! (1976) Dir. Russ Meyer Well, bi-Adolf Hitler BDSM is not something (a) I thought I’d ever see 5 minutes into a movie and (b) ever expected to write in my lifetime to be fair but this spicy start is pretty standard for the work of exploitation filmmaker Russ Meyer. Up! is a kind of r*pe-revenge softcore p*rn film (there’s gonna be a fair bit of self-censorship in this review so apologies in advance), the type Meyer is known for. I’d describe the plot in more detail but it’s mostly a convoluted and incoherent mess of double-crossing, murder, violence and lots and lots of humping. In short, a man called Adolph gets murdered and a woman investigates (kinda) the circumstances but as she does so, a group of locals blackmail, attack and screw each other with the murder mystery barely mentioned throughout. With so little narrative, it could be argued if it’s essentially p*rn? To be fair, not far off. It’s about extreme as you can go without simply making a s*x film. Is that a…no, it’s a belly button hole. Bookending the film (and also seen at various points throughout) is a Greek Chorus - simply a busty fully nude woman of course - who delivers dialogue like “Pummelling the scrotum with joyous supplication” and other such poeticisms. This artistic flourish is mostly pointless - the actress herself saying the words were tough to learn because it was utter nonsense. On a technical level, the editing is surprisingly well done and the 4k image is frankly fantastic. Someone somewhere must be putting together a post-modern take about the beautiful landscapes and cinematography of Meyer’s * ahem * output. But it definitely does have a kitsch artistry. It has certainly provided plenty of cinematic influence though. Elements of Tarantino grindhouse sensibilities are on show - Meyers likes bosoms as much as Quents likes feet - and there’s even a leather gimp early on. I can also see how its had an impact on Ti West X’s with a focus on sexuality and the body as well, more obviously, Anna Biller’s feminist-twist The Love Witch (2016). Suffice to say it’s not for the weak of heart. I think in this day and age you can’t go into this completely blind to its style, period and context though. It's an X-rated Carry On style that was bad taste then and it’s bad taste now. It revels in its sleaziness without a single hint of shame or apology. Simply saying 'deal with it'. The main negative though is the absence of plot - if the film can even be looked at like that - which is barely present. This is a shame as the whole thing could do with a bit more coherence rather than endless shagging. But it’s far from titillation, it’s mostly clowning - albeit a very adult version of it. More saucy than sexy. Trying to review this through modern sensibilities is almost impossible. It’s as offensive can be from the first scene through to the final credits - heck even this 4k menu is simply one of the film's many s*x scenes. But there are some progressive themes as it doesn’t shy from confronting sexual freedom, bisexuality, gay sex, BDSM and consensual exploration. There's moments of comedy thrown in and I enjoyed a frankly hilarious 5-minute monologue explaining the culprit’s intentions, which was a ludicrous way to deliver a slasher-style ending. I suppose the main thing about Up! (and Meyers’ work overall) is there’s a sort of love it or loathe it quality about the whole shebang. But it’s so unlike anything being made today - for good or bad - that it’s never anything other than unpredictably fascinating. More explicit than most Meyers films - in fact more than any film - it’s a lewd, rude and crude (s)exploration with a satirical edge and campy enjoyment bouncing from every frame. ★★★ 3 / 5 Michael Sales Severin Films releases Russ Meyers' UP! (1976) and MOTORPSYCHO (1965) on 28 April 2025 in newly restored and scanned 4k with hours of new and archival Special Features https://severinfilms.co.uk/
On the 24th of April, the Midlands Art Centre opened its doors to Gobby Flicks Productions for a night of live comedy. Proceeds were raised towards the production of new short comedy films, directed and written by women.
Ti West’s The House of the Devil makes a wonderful companion piece to his film The Innkeepers. Both maintain the director’s referential approach to horror, incapsulating it in a slow burning 90 minutes that manages to build and maintain tension while cheekily winking to the audience and showing the mechanisms behind the scares.
Read the full list of nominees for the Midlands Movies Awards 2025