The Man from U.N.C.L.E review: Forget James Bond, there are new spies in town and they're gorgeous

A British director has made a film in which an American plays a Russian and an Englishman plays an American – the Cold War really is over and, in the words of Disney, it’s a small world after all. Set in 1963, Guy Ritchie’s latest film, The Man From U.N.C.L.E is about an American and a Russian spy who are forced to work together when a nuclear scientist is kidnapped by a Nazi millionaire couple. Back in the 1960s, The Man From U.N.C.L.E was a television series, but all Ritchie has taken from that source material are the characters’ names. What Ritchie and his Sherlock Holmes collaborator Lionel Wigram have come up with isn’t new or brilliant, but it is a whole lot of fun. From the opening credits that unfurl to the smooth, soulful lilt of Roberta Flack’s “Compared to What”, it’s clear that U.N.C.L.E is a very stylish affair. Ritchie uses music cleverly in most of his films, and Daniel Pemberton delivers a glorious, ’60s-inspired soundtrack that informs everything from cinematography to dialogues in U.N.C.L.E. [caption id=“attachment_2411660” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A still from The Man from UNCLE.[/caption] The action sequences are sharply on-point, which is what is expected from a Ritchie film, but they become truly memorable because of the music that laces those scenes. For instance, there’s one in which the American spy calmly focuses on his wine and sandwich while his Russian partner in crime is being chased by the armed and dangerous. On the radio, Peppino Gagliardi romantically croons “Che Vuole Questa Musica Stasera”. It brings home the delicious absurdity and contrasts between the two men’s situations. The plot of U.N.C.L.E is paper thin and without either surprises or twists. The film does, however, begins with an adrenaline rush – an elaborate chase gives us a tour of East Berlin – and ends with the a bang (literally). There are no revelations or unexpected twists, even for those who have only a passing acquaintance with spy movies. Every trope you associate with the genre is here, but because Ritchie is having so much fun with them, U.N.C.L.E never feels boring or tired. There are many stylish moments, like when Ritchie divides the scene into panels (like in a comic book) to show a chase from different angles simultaneously, but it’s never style over substance. Instead of visual pyrotechnics, Ritchie focuses on character, banter and detail in U.N.C.L.E. And so, we get a film set in 1960s’ East Berlin and Rome, recreated in exquisite, beautiful detail. The men are gorgeous and witty. The women are wily and flutter false eyelashes so thick, they could be lines of miniature bayonets. Physical action, sexual chemistry, exquisite locations and tonnes of innuendo come together to make a film that’s fun, fluffy and decidedly escapist – all of which are excellent and welcome qualities in an age that’s reimagined James Bond as a serious, tortured hero. If Cary Grant, Remington Steele and Ian Fleming’s James Bond could be put in a DNA blender, you’d get Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill), the dashing and sardonic art thief who has been roped into working for the CIA in lieu of spending years in a prison cell. Solo finds himself shoulder to shoulder with the hulking Ilya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer), a brilliant KGB agent with a troubled past and a tendency to break out in “psychotic episodes”. The reason CIA and KGB are working together is that both are at a loss when a nuclear scientist with a Nazi background disappears. It seems the only way to reach him is through the daughter he abandoned in East Berlin, and it’s in that bleak part of the world that the CIA and KGB decide to join hands in order to prevent nuclear technology falling into Nazi hands. Enter Gaby (Alicia Vikander), the lost scientist’s daughter and a mechanical genius in her own right. Solo is contracted to “extract” her from East Berlin, which he does only to realise that this is merely the beginning. The next part of the mission requires Solo, Kuryakin and Gaby to go undercover. Solo has the task of winding the formidable Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki) around his little finger. While he does that, Kuryakin is to pose as Gaby’s fiancé and through her, locate her scientist father. And in the middle of all this is a bespectacled British gent named Waverley (Hugh Grant), who pops up at critical junctures. Ostensibly, the romantic undercurrents are between Kuryakin and Gaby, but the sparks really fly when Solo and Kuryakin are in the same frame. They have nicknames for each other as well as rejoinders, and it doesn’t hurt that Cavill and Hammer are both so easy on the eye. Following the golden rule of rom-coms, they’re opposites who attract and over the course of U.N.C.L.E, we see them go from throttling each other to clinking glasses on a terrace in Rome. There’s even a moment in which Solo (whom Kuraykin calls “Cowboy”) tells his Russian partner, “I take top.” Kuryakin, nicknamed “Peril” by Solo, responds with “I do bottom”, and goes down on his knees. Even in the glossy world of Hollywood hotness, it’s rare to such a concentration of physical beauty as you see in almost every frame of U.N.C.L.E and it is to Ritchie’s credit that he doesn’t rely upon this to sell his film to audiences. He and co-writer Wigram fill their screenplay with smart repartee, charming characters and one-liners that salute vintage Hollywood. By Ritchie’s standards, there are very few high-octane moments, but you don’t miss them in the film. If anything, you wish there was more back-and-forth between Kuryakin and Solo. U.N.C.L.E is a wicked, entertaining ride that zips around all the cliches – the stoic, brutish Russian; the lecherous Italian; the icy villainess; the smooth-talking spy, and so on. To dismiss it as a spoof of spy films is doing it injustice. U.N.C.L.E is too fun, lavish and beautiful to be a spoof. However, those who expect modern pizzazz from Ritchie may be disappointed. This is a nostalgia trip to the age when Hollywood films dared to dismiss realism and embrace the absurd, stylishly.