Film - The Courier

Everyone you meet, assume is KGB. Every Russian is an eye of the State

The courier is a spy thriller based on the friendship between British businessman Greville Wynne  ( I know, if he didn’t exist IRL we’d think the name was made up) and Russian Officer Oleg Penkovsky. We’re in 1960, Russia are threatening nuclear war and Wynne, who has watched one or two James Bond films, is asked by M15 to go to Russia to exchange information with a conscientious Oleg, who has reached out to the UK government to offer information
Of course, his wife cannot know but they have a history with his dishonesty so trust is an issue.

[SPOILER ALERT} As a rule, I avoid prison scenes so I could have done without those. Even though I closed my eyes for most of them, the resulting couple of nights of nightmares would testify to my reasoning.  The film only really needed five minutes of this as we could have then explored the more important - and interesting story of the friendship between the two spies.

I would have loved to have just seen more of this but in any case, The Courier throws some detail into this well-documented slice of history.

7/10