Director Guy Ritchie’s big screen version of the 1964-68 TV series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., opened in theatres to a less than enthusiastic response last August. That’s too bad. Despite some creative missteps, U.N.C.L.E. (hereafter referred to as UNCLE) is actually a terrific spy flick.
Set in 1963 during the Cold War, the film has American CIA agent and former art thief Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) team up with Russian KGB operative Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) to track down a former Nazi scientist who may be constructing a nuclear bomb for a wealthy married couple, jet setters (and Nazi sympathizers) Victoria and Alexander Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki, Luca Calvani). They enlist the assistance of the scientist’s daughter, Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander), and head to Italy undercover to infiltrate contact with the Vinciguerras through Gaby’s Uncle Rudi (Sylvester Groth), who works for the couple (and has a rather unpleasant secret of his own).
Besides taking out the Vinciguerras and their organization (sadly not named THRUSH), Solo and Kuryakin have also been secretly ordered by their bosses to retrieve the scientist and take him and his data back to their respective countries. If one agent gets in the way, the other is ordered to kill him. Meanwhile, is Gaby really an unknowing innocent? And what part does mysterious British gentleman Alexander Waverly (Hugh Grant) play in all this?
The original TV series was, at least in its first season and a half (and its abbreviated fourth and last season), a fun, humorous spy thriller, with the effortless chemistry of stars Robert Vaughn (Solo) and David McCallum (Kuryakin) anchoring the show even when things got too silly. (Like the third season episodes.) The UNCLE movie, despite its insistence on presenting an “origin” storyline, does capture the spirit of the series. Cavill, whose Solo now has a backstory similar to Robert Wagner’s Al Mundy on the old It Takes a Thief series, practically channels Vaughn’s attitude and body mannerisms, while Hammer’s Kuryakin, now a guy with impulse control issues, gets the all business attitude tropes first done by McCallum. Both have similar chemistry. The supporting cast is fine too.
The best part of the film was the way it captured, more or less (some clothing looks very post-1963…), the look of an old European-made spy thriller from the 60s. The cinematography by John Mathieson, the music score by Daniel Pemberton, and the sets and costume design (not to mention the actual location shooting in Italy and England, both also taking turns as East Berlin) all contribute to giving the impression of a 007 knock off from fifty years ago. The raid on the Vinciguerras’ island hideout is particularly well-edited and economical looking (lots of split screens, also a 60s movie fixture).
Problems: the UNCLE organization is only referenced at the very end of the film (and sticks around for the closing credits). With the exception of creepy Uncle Rudi, the other villains are blah. And for a film that didn’t want to be a modern-day James Bond imitation, why was the climax from Ian Fleming’s Moonraker novel invoked? (Fun fact: Fleming was one of the original creators of the UNCLE TV series.)
Since it was based on a 50-year-old TV series, and set in period, most audiences avoided the film when it came out last summer. Now available on DVD from the library, The Man From UNCLE should get more attention than it did before.
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