Critics reviews

"The Courier" is almost two films in one: the second half is much darker and more intense than the first, but the shift is so delicately abrupt that at first you barely register it. That’s part of the movie’s edgily engaging artistry; what begins as a shadowy spy adventure ends in a place of mournful resignation.

As the pressures on Wynne increase, and the missions become more dangerous, the spectacle of this average man trying to stay safe becomes riveting. It’s also instructive. “The Courier” reminds us that most people who become part of history really don’t want to be. Instead, they just want to escape history and return to gloriously unremarkable daily life.

Cumberbatch is terrific, but the real attraction here is the great Georgian actor Ninidze, who can relay an entire novel’s worth of information with just a couple of glances... "The Courier" is a serviceable espionage drama and history lesson, but whenever these two actors are onscreen together, it approaches the sublime.

[Cumberbatch] brings a whole lot of understated star power to a movie that otherwise benefits from how tightly constructed it is, without a lot of fat on its bones or embroidery around its edges. On that level, and others, "The Courier" more than delivers.

The Courier isn't about high espionage thriller antics... It's the quiet, raw fear of the amateur, not carrying secrets because it's the cool thing to do, but because of the overwhelming terror that not doing so will lead to nuclear doom.

["The Courier"] stubbornly resists involving or affecting us until it’s almost over. By that time, though, you might have fallen asleep. Ideally, that shouldn’t happen while watching two stand-up guys — one British, one Russian — perhaps narrowly prevent a nuclear apocalypse. But the director, Dominic Cooke... is either unable to generate tension or simply chooses not to.

If there’s such a thing as a Cold War Comfort Movie and let’s say there is, “The Courier” fits the bill perfectly, ticking off many of the familiar boxes of the genre... We already know how the tense standoff between the United States and the Soviets played out in the early 1960s — but most of us likely didn’t know the stories of Wynne and Penkovsky... “The Courier” is a worthy tribute to these two good men.

"The Courier" never gets too involved in the overarching politics, preferring to focus on the personal. This may be Cooke's strength as a filmmaker, because the bromance that develops between Greville and Penkovsky is engaging... Overall, "The Courier" recovers an important historical moment. If only the film didn't feel so muted.

Though there’s nothing new or transformative here, “The Courier” stays afloat due to the acting by Buckley, Cumberbatch, and Ninidze. Unfortunately, Brosnahan’s performance is flat. Her character feels completely out of place here, as if Donovan were thrown in to inject an American into a very British story.

There’s only so much "The Courier" can do with events that are at best theoretically exciting. O’Connor’s script often flirts with cliché... [and] it’s the opening words—“This film is based on true events”—that represent ["The Courier's"] strength and its limitation.

The movie, less stirring than it ought to be, is peculiarly cramped, lacking the emotional latitude of “Bridge of Spies.” Spielberg dramatized a clash of moral principles, under the cover story of a thriller, but “The Courier” is all that it appears to be and not much more.

"The Courier" is less interested in exploring the complex realities of the Cold War than in regurgitating some of the more tired artistic tropes about the era... Indeed, much of Dominic Cooke’s plodding film feels as if it’s been cribbed from other, more potent works about shadowy, Soviet-era intelligence.