This was a looting pickup from a closing Family Video, chosen because it starred Jon Snow (aka Kit Harrington) and looked like a spy action flick and cost 75 cents. While the movie somewhat delivers on its billing, it has a crucial detail which made it extremely unsatisfying to engage with: It's a spinoff film from a British TV series I'd never heard of called Spooks which ran for 10 series (86 episodes) from 2002-2012 (and was called MI-5 in the USA) with this film coming out in 2015 under the title Spooks: The Greater Good. Watching this would be like watching a 24 spinoff without knowing the show and its hero, Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland).
Here is the synopsis of MI-5: The Motion: "When a terrorist escapes custody during a routine handover, Will Holloway (Harrington) must team with disgraced MI5 Intelligence Chief Harry Pearce (Peter Firth) to track him down before an imminent terrorist attack on London."
That's pretty much the movie. Pearce was the main character in the series and I guess if you were a fan of the show, what happens to him and what he does would carry more resonance, but since I wasn't, it didn't. It was fairly easy to spot some of the twists with the others being totally out of left field. It was more entertaining looking up the couple of familiar faces from American TV shows and discovering they were actually British including David Harewood (Martian Manhunter on Supergirl) and Eleanor Matsuura (Yumiko on The Walking Dead and Baron Chau on Into The Badlands).
Because it relied on familiarity with the Spooks cast other than new additions Harrington and Jennifer Ehle (who's a ringer for Miranda Otto), I just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for a fairly beige spy thriller. If you're a fan of the show, have at it. Otherwise...
Score: 3/10. Skip it.
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