Review: In 'The Courier,' Benedict Cumberbatch brings the heat to a tense Cold War spy thriller

Cold War intrigue and some old-fashioned heroism come into play in “The Courier,” which casts Benedict Cumberbatch as an unlikely spy infiltrating the Soviet Union.

Greville Wynne, the real-life figure Cumberbatch portrays here, isn’t a spy at all. He’s an English businessman, making deals on the golf course and then heading home to his wife, Sheila (Jessie Buckley), and their son. So it’s a surprise when, in 1960, he’s approached by an American CIA operative (Rachel Brosnahan) and her MI6 counterpart (Angus Wright) with a request: Befriend a Soviet industry official, Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), who has made surreptitious contact with the American embassy.

Wynne meets Penkovsky in Moscow, and they strike up an easy friendship. Penkovsky — whose nickname is “Ironbark” (which was this movie’s title when it premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival) — takes Wynne to see the Bolshoi, and Wynne reciprocates with a show on the West End when Penkovsky and a trade delegation visit London. On subsequent trips to Moscow, Wynne receives deliveries of microfilm from Penkovsky — but he’s been told, for his own safety, not to inquire about the information contained on that film. The less Wynne knows, the CIA and MI6 minders say, the more likely he’ll survive if he’s captured.

Penkovsky believes that Nikita Khrushchev, the new leader of the USSR, is to impetuous and erratic — and is looking for a war with the West, if he can start some provocation to rile up the Americans. Penkovsky finds information about a likely plan to turn the Cold War into something hotter: Putting Soviet missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the Florida coast.

It’s a fascinating story, and screenwriter Tom O’Connor (“The Hitman’s Bodyguard”) finds a structure — following both Cumberbatch’s Wynne and Ninidze’s Penkovsky on parallel tracks, each wrestling with their own ethical dilemmas as they come to trust each other in this deadly game.

Director Dominic Cooke (“On Chesil Beach”) deftly draws out the tension in O’Connor’s script, and dives into strong emotions when the situation changes dramatically in the final half hour. Cooke has clearly studied “The Third Man” and John LeCarré’s spy novels, and creates an oppressive atmosphere filled with deep shadows from where suspicious eyes may be watching.

Tthe main attraction, though, is Cumberbatch, as he portrays Wynne’s evolution from hapless businessman to resolute freedom fighter. Thanks to Cumberbatch’s performance, “The Courier” delivers as a tense, thoughtful spy drama.

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‘The Courier’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 19, in theaters where open. Rated PG-13 for violence, partial nudity, brief strong language, and smoking throughout. Running time: 112 minutes.