#OnTheBigScreen: The Courier and Wrath of Man

The Courier

An intelligent true-life spy-thriller of an unassuming British businessman Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) recruited into one of the greatest international conflicts in history. At the behest of the UK’s MI-6 and a CIA operative (Rachel Brosnahan), he forms a covert, dangerous partnership with Soviet officer Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) to provide crucial intelligence needed to prevent a nuclear confrontation and defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It is directed by Dominic Cooke from a screenplay by Tom O’Connor.

“I wanted to make a movie like this for a long time,” says producer Ben Pugh. “I love that period. I loved the idea of an everyday guy in the centre of that world with all these thrilling elements and this massive global political backdrop while it’s about him and his family, and he ends up trying to save the world.”

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Wrath of Man

Wrath of Man reunites filmmaker Guy Ritchie and star Jason Statham, once again, though there’s no question this script is thematically darker and far less blackly comic than any of their previous collaborations. Together, their early films redefined the action movie genre. Now, for the first time in more than 15 years, they team up for an explosive revenge thriller.

After a deadly ambush on one of its armoured cars, Los Angeles-based Fortico Securities hires a mysterious new employee, Patrick Hill (Statham), who becomes known simply as H. As he learns the ropes from partner Bullet (Holt McCallany), H initially appears to be a quiet, keep-your-head down type simply there to do a job and earn a living. But when he and Bullet become the targets of an attempted robbery, H’s formidable skills are revealed.

Not only is he an expert marksman who’s equally adept at hand-to-hand combat, but H is also fearless, ruthless and lethal. In truth, H is an undercover crime boss desperately searching for a way to avenge the murder of his beloved son. His quest takes an expected turn when a cadre of ex-military men, led by the clever, calculating Jackson (Jeffrey Donovan), plots a once-in-a-lifetime heist that will bring them a windfall of millions. What they fail to realise is that the high-stakes job will also set them on a violent collision course with the wrathful H.

Based on the French film Le Convoyeur, Wrath Of Man is directed by Ritchie from a screenplay by Ivan Atkinson, Marn Davies and Ritchie.

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