All the Old Knives

A smart, compelling, pared-down thriller for grown-ups, anchored by a pair of stunningly charming performances from Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton.

Keeping in mind the limitations imposed on the production by the running time, All the Old Knives offers a compelling (if ultimately unremarkable) spy movie that tilts more toward a drama than a conventional action/thriller.

The film is a compelling concept that doesn’t thread the needle of its competing impulses quite as gracefully as it might have, but driven by the imminently watchable Newton and Pine, it makes for the kind of adult-oriented storytelling one wishes there was more of these days.

All The Old Knives is compelling moment by moment, but afterward viewers may have some lingering questions about what characters hoped to accomplish, or why they were involved at all.

The filmmaking is stylish yet impersonal — or can true style be impersonal? Maybe that’s why proficiency is a better word. A general slickness obtains.

All The Old Knives attempts to convince its audiences that it is a tawdry game of chess, but in reality, it’s a game of checkers. Pine and Newton are its saving grace, with their performances elevating it just above the waters of drowning in its own self-importance.

All the Old Knives settles for all the old tropes.

You Know What's Coming, But You Hang Around Anyway .. .. All the Old Knives is a film you watch when you're scrolling through the channels and nothing is on. The R-rating is strictly for the sex scenes, which were unnecessary, because this film calls upon the viewer's imagination with many plot elements implied so spelling out those scenes in detail is contradictory to the approach of telling the story. The screenplay and novel author Olen Steinhauer is also responsible for the fantastic series Berlin Station and if the author had more time and money to produce a longer film(maybe 3 more hours) All the Old Knives might have been a better production. All the Old Knives is average, middle of the road, meh, **** you truly want a better experience, pay strict close attention to all the characters and the small elements that are introduced throughout the film - which are many.

Esse filme sofre de identidade, o diretor precisa de terapia urgentemente. Ao narrar a história de uma acontecimento ocorrido no voo 127 em 2012, cria-se a necessidade de, 10 anos depois, resolver-se o mistério e de quem teria facilitado o ataque terrorista que custou a vida de toda a tripulação, inclusive aí os reféns inocentes. Ocorre que há uma trilha que nos leva ao suspense, mas também uma pegada de triller policial encabeçado pelo conjunto de investigadores, em especial por Henry Pelham (Chris Pine), a quem coube a missão de entrevistar antigos colegas da CIA, afinal, a grande suspeita é que havia um traidor infiltrado facilitando as informações ao ataque. A trilha quase monotômica não apenas começa a incomodar, como também o filme deixa de lado a pegada policial para ganhar contornos dramáticos e terminar por ser um romance!! Uma verdadeira salada, embora bem dirigida e com uma entrega sempre acima da média dos atores. Mas não há aqui uma tensão pelos acontecimentos ou maiores desdobramentos geopolíticos. Começa prometendo e muito e termina água com açúcar.

All the Old Knives - a movie who wants to be a action thriller espionage with a pinch of love drama. I don't think this two things are working together. The casting is interesting and dynamic, but not fully used. There is a twist in the final, trying to make the movie more interesting, but i didn't care that much of that. Not a great movie, not revolutionary for the genre, but it's worth a watch in a Sunday evening.

A cast that deserved much better plotting and intrigue, dreadfully dull and lifeless.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]