The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 116 minutes
Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Jared Harris, Hugh Grant, Luca Calvani, Simona Caparrini
KRS Releasing Ltd

After making a living out of stealing art, Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) is now an American spy. In 1963, he is in East Berlin where he is to take mechanic Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander) out of the country and find her father Udo (Christian Berkel) who had been one of the Nazi regime’s best rocket scientists but after the war had switched sides to the US.

The Russians are also on their tail as they also want Gaby. They send Illya Kuraykin (Armie Hammer) to retrieve her. Things get hairy but, after some close dashes, Napoleon manages to escape.

Then arrives a surprise: his handler Saunders (Jared Harris) tells him that from then onwards he will be working with Illya, who is to play the part of an architect and fiancé to Gaby and so get into the close circle of Alexander and Victoria Vinciguerra (Luca Calvani and Elizabeth Debicki). The couple alternate between racing cars and running a top secret organisation that is on track to build an atomic bomb.

One of Britain’s top men in the spy business, Waverly (Hugh Grant), is very worried about all this. Napoleon and Illya have different characters, backgrounds and styles and definitely do not trust each other but in some way or another they have to work together.

A few years ago Guy Ritchie reinvented himself as a director after his personal and movie forays with Madonna and also turned Sherlock Holmes into a stylish and action hero.

His reinvention of the TV series that aired from 1964 to 1968 and starred Robert Vaughan and David McCallum has a retro cool image and is very entertaining. The result is a movie that is begging to become a franchise.

Ritchie keeps the film light in its tone. The actors themselves keep their cool and never bring the same intensity of a Sean Connery or Daniel Craig. In fact, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is once again playing the laid-back version of James Bond, which is what had made it so popular the first time round.

The spying game has never seemed so good- looking or attractive. Cavill dresses up in such gloriously fashionable attire, there are super-models everywhere and while danger abounds, there’s always the next drink to look forward to.

This film was never about the plot. The storyline is an excuse to get the starry cast into one problem after the other and to make everything that happens on-screen look tremendously good.

Fans of the original series should like the film as it really lives up to the spirit that made it tick and bases itself very much on the charisma of the two leads and how they seem to be always bouncing off each other.

Meanwhile, Vikander, who continues her run of great performances after the recent Ex Machina, provides the right sensual presence.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. sashays its way into our attention as it offers some razzle dazzle that was missing from other modern action movies.

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