I guess I should give the film The Courier it's due time and effort to sell it to anybody who hasn't seen it yet.
To put it briefly, the movie takes place during the early 60s in the years leading up to, including, and slightly beyond the Cuban Missile Crises. The movie focuses on real-life characters Oleg Penkovsky and Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch). Penkovsky was a high ranking Soviet officer who decided to leak intelligence to the West in order to try to avoid a nuclear war. Greville was a British civilian and salesman who was asked by the CIA and MI6 to travel to the Soviet Union under the guise of contracting Western manufacturing with the Soviets in order to make contact with Penkovsky.
This movie had all the intrigue, attention to detail, drama, and elegance of any of the great John le Carré adaptations like The Constant Gardner, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and A Most Wanted Man while arguably being more accessable, less convoluted, and faster paced.
Although political at the core of its conflict, the film is more focused on the human element. Cumberbatch underwent a shocking physical transition during the course of the film; but, that shouldn't overshadow the emotional and philosophical changes and growth that he portrayed. The film rightly attacks the Soviet dictatorship while showing the brutal reality of espionage regardless of who's doing it. But, that's really not the point.
Penkovsky says to Wynne's son at one point in the movie, when the son asks him if Soviets really hated the west so much, that each of their politicians hate one another; but, we're just two people.
Really, I think that's the point. I also think that it's an important one to make.
