‘Red Sparrow’ is a decent espionage film that isn’t as deep as it thinks it is

Posted on March 9, 2018

By MARK VIOLA

A good espionage story is hard to find, and I don’t mean a good spy action movie in the vein of the “Bourne” trilogy or even the James Bond films. “Atomic Blonde” came pretty close last year, although despite how much I enjoyed that movie, it had a bit more style than substance when it came to the story. In recent years, the only true examples I can think of are “Argo,” based on real-life events, and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” an adaptation of the excellent novel by John le Carré. Another good example is 2014’s “A Most Wanted Man,” not coincidently also based on a le Carré work.

The new film “Red Sparrow,” based on the novel by Jason Matthews, is the first in a while that attempts to pull a true mind-bending mystery of an espionage movie — one that keeps you guessing all the way to the end. Unlike murder-mystery whodunits, you can’t trust anybody in a spy story because just about everyone has been trained to lie, cheat or seduce their way into whatever their mission requires.

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