Courier X

with cloak-and-dagger suspense, betrayal and backstabbing, political conspiring, shyster-mobster and intertwined human relationship all woven and fabricated together, allowing you to know some truth and facts behind Iran-Contra scandal during Reagon administration.

The movie could be much much better, if 1) The script could be more condensed, the tempo from scene to scene, setting to setting, locality to locality much much faster, 2) with more production budget, 3) a better director, 4) more appropriate casting 5) better post-production editing.

But in real world, this film just turned out to be snail-crawling slow, loosely relayed sequence, and boring acting. A film produced in 2016 couldn't even catch up the tensed paces like what we saw in "Three Days of the Condor (1975)". Lot of scenes showed the shortage of limited budget. The CIA headquarters just looked like some small company's office, only with several key characters, all worked in tight small offices, the CIA director's office got a staircase that made his office looked very funny. The journalist's scenes, simply looked primitive and unrealistic...There are lot of segments that should be paced 300% faster, yet simply turned to be like the speed of the locomotive when we pioneered from the east to the west coast.

There's only one thing that I have to point out: The dialog sometimes quite strong and top-notched with depth and cynicism, but due to the loose script, the mediocre directing and extremely low budget, making this film looked more like adapted from John Le-Carre's deadbeat boring espionage novels. A 2016 movie's tempo is 1000 times slower than a 1975 one, an absolutely shame!

Offers a plausible explanation for TWA 800. I enjoyed it but I'm 66 years old and remember when movies had substance. This one does, but some of the acting is poor. Not so much as to be a major problem, the story and most of the acting is fine.

Ignorant and Impatient would be the words to describe individuals who do not like this movie. Why do I say this…, because this movie is very, very slow in contrast to all the hyper-cut Hollywood horseshit that is being cranked out by the major studios. And since I am an older audience member (57 years old) I appreciate a slower paced movie that actually has very intelligent dialog and a lot of information. And this movie certainly has a lot of information, to the point that the average person is not going to have the bandwidth to keep up with it. This is simply a function of all the Hollywood movies being written at an 8th grade level, which is grooming society to be ignorant.

I read numerous reviews, many of which said the acting was bad, but I adamantly disagree. I found all the performances in this film to be very 'genuine'. But again, everyone is so accustomed to all the bad acting and over-acting in Hollywood (and TV for that matter) that people are now getting so accustomed to these sub-standard performances that they actually think it is good acting.

This film is very robust, from modern day crime figures (who act with intellect and reason) versus the 'bada-bing' Jersey type mob figures we always see, along with extremely calculating, manipulative and underhanded CIA agents, who exercise with cunning tactics, intellect and leverage against one another (versus violence) to accomplish their task. All of this is how it actually happens in real life (as a retired FED I know this) versus the guns and car explosions that Hollywood continues to use as a crutch.

There are many, many colorful characters in this film, all of whom have their own individual personalities and subtle nuances that keep them distinct from one other. And with the exception of some seriously drab, lackluster CIA offices; the other locations (many more than most indie films) are extensive and very good.

At the end of the day this movie is only for a very mature and educated audience (over 55) who are going to appreciate a film with a real story, with very sensitive material that is handled in a professional manner, without all the gratuitous sex, violence and explosions, which seems to be the only thing Hollywood can do. For future watchers of this film, I must warn you that this film is very much an indie-flick with an ultra-low budget, so you should not expect anything 'slick'. Be prepared to sit in a quiet room and pay very close attention; otherwise you will get lost and then frustrated. This movie will not spoon-feed you information like Hollywood does to keep you engaged. Even I had to watch it, twice, to fully grasp the breadth of information. And a little on-line research, after you watch the film, will help you put the elements into perspective as well. It will be interesting to see what these filmmakers can do when they actually get a real budget to work with.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with the reviews so far written about this movie. It seems the budget was fairly limited; the pace of the movie was very slow in the main; acting was not of a particularly high caliber throughout. However, the pace picked up towards the end making this a watchable espionage tale. For those interested in the CIA involvement and the implications of criminal activity by a government agency, this movie should whet your appetite to perhaps seek out better movies/reading material about this period in US history. Still a worthwhile production. Two of the characters who made a creditable impression were Nathan Volgel and Charles Alexander' It seems almost ironic that the closing credits describe Trenlin as an operative whose ability to "..remain calm in stressful conditions made him a preferred 'contractee' of the CIA" In all honesty I found this character to be almost lacking emotion and maudlin in the extreme.

Realistic. Accurate. Intelligent. It is a very very special movie, a fine wine, for those who like to read spy books and watch spy movies. Completely unlike usual Hollywood spy movies.