Review: Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton bring restrained passion to ‘All the Old Knives’

Secrets and techniques, rating settling, grudge holding, deception and recriminations are, in fact, the stuff of worldwide espionage. In some circumstances they can be the elements of romantic entanglements, particularly within the aftermath of sophisticated liaisons. All of which is to say worldwide espionage and romantic entanglements each revolve across the important unknowability of different folks.

Such is the intention of “All of the Outdated Knives,” a cerebral thriller with a chic sensibility directed by Janus Metz from a screenplay by Olen Steinhauer adapting his personal novel. Chris Pine stars as Henry Pelham, a CIA case officer despatched to interview his former colleague and clandestine ex-lover Celia Harrison (Thandiwe Newton), who has left worldwide spycraft behind to start out a household within the upscale environs of “Huge Little Lies” nation in Northern California. (How apropos.) Jonathan Pryce and Laurence Fishburne are each underutilized in roles as their superior officers.

Over a leisurely dinner that’s half heartfelt reunion and half difficult interrogation, Henry makes an attempt to pry from Celia whether or not she had something to do with a leak of their outdated workplace that prompted the deaths of everybody aboard a hijacked airliner. Quickly each of their secrets and techniques begin spilling out.

Director Metz beforehand made the tennis-world psychodrama “Borg vs. McEnroe,” a becoming connection as “All of the Outdated Knives” is rooted within the back-and-forth volleys of its two primary characters. Pine and Newton have a particular chemistry that continues to be restrained and reserved, the connection of two folks educated to by no means reveal an excessive amount of, but with one thing recklessly plain drawing them collectively. The movie’s large love scene is extra dramatic than erotic, although it does embody a warmth and keenness that’s lacking from a lot of the remainder of the movie.

That the primary signifier of the movie’s flashbacks is that Pine’s hair is longer and floppier and he has a penchant for layered scarves, which later give approach to tailor-made fits, is in some way each hilarious and lovely. The parts of the movie that discover Henry and Celia’s time collectively previously really feel much less convincing than when they’re taking part in two outdated flames who know they’re higher off not collectively, but are each nonetheless haunted by a sure sense of what-if. In contrast to most former {couples}, their romantic backstory and inevitable breakup is pushed by a lethal incident of worldwide terrorism.

“All The Outdated Knives” comes out proper after “The Contractor,” which additionally stars Pine and had ambitions to merge a home drama with an motion thriller, shades of Robert Ludlum akin to “Outdated Knives’” nods to John Le Carré. Each movies don’t totally pull off what they’re aiming for, however showcase Pine’s charisma, vulnerability and flexibility as an actor with rather more to supply than simply his main man seems. Newton has develop into such a reliably nuanced performer that it’s simple to miss the subtlety of her work right here.

At one level in “All of the Outdated Knives” Newton says, “It’s the issues that we don’t know that get to me,” a line that finest hyperlinks the movie’s espionage plot and romantic drama. The movie is a compelling idea that doesn’t thread the needle of its competing impulses fairly as gracefully because it may need, however pushed by the imminently watchable Newton and Pine, it makes for the sort of adult-oriented storytelling one needs there was extra of as of late.