“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

The November Man - Movie PosterTHE NOVEMBER MAN might not be the worst movie I have seen all year, but it is certainly the worst spy thriller I have seen all year.

It stars Pierce Brosnan as Peter Devereaux, who used to be a CIA agent, and it has the tired old story of someone being pulled out of retirement for one last job.

The story begins in 2008 in Montenegro, and Devereaux is training another agent, a young man named David Mason, part of which training is, “You feel the need for a relationship? Get a dog.”

Mason then botches a mission by not following Devereaux’s orders, and suddenly it is five years later in Switzerland, where Devereaux is living in retirement, and he is notified that a woman in Moscow wants to “come in” because something is scaring her, her name is Natalia, and she is asking only for Devereaux to be the one to rescue her and bring her to safety.

We don’t know it yet, but Natalia and Devereaux have a history together, and he travels to Moscow to rescue her, but the Russians figure out what she is doing, and that mission is badly botched, but not before Natalia gives Devereaux her phone with incriminating photos on it.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, but Mason is involved in that failed mission, too, and now Devereaux wants revenge, because someone close to him was killed.

Now the story gets really confusing with a Russian named Arkady Federov about to become president of Russia, but there is something in his past that might cause him problems, a woman named Alice Fournier has information about his past, and so Devereaux wants to find her and protect her from others who want her dead.

Confusing? You bet! There are too many people and too many complicated stories going on, along with too many shoot-outs, car chases, and crashes to distract us from trying to figure out the plot.

And we don’t even know what the title means until near the end of the movie when we learn that Devereaux was called the November Man because after he passed through, nothing lived.

In that case, THE NOVEMBER MAN, the movie, could also be called “The November Movie,” because after I saw it, no other movie comes close to living.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”