All the Old Knives

Slow boil thriller. Moves at a deliberate pace over two timelines. A solid cast and story. Just as things get predictable, a third act plot twist adds to the story intrigue.

The movie has all the good accessories: sleek production, atmospheric mise-en-scene, glossy photography, powerful soundtrack.

But it's the excellent screenplay (from author Olen Steinhauer) and acting performances that make All The Old Knives a high quality espionage thriller, one made of the good old stuff.

For once the genre is not represented in movies by the usual kiss-kiss bang-bang, car chases, fistfights and the whole James Bond enchilada. This is espionage for connoisseurs.

Definitely a 7 or more. Right now showing a 6 is very underated. Great acting by both Newton and Pine. Keeps you interested throughout. I'd recommend for sure.

Where the complicated strings of life in the shadowlands of spying at each other, ultimately leads to the fall of a king or chessmate or chest mate and good night...

an unusual tight , extremely dusk, grey and dark spythriller, not as action filled as ''spy games'', but eventually pretty decent try on a genre that hasnt been overflowing the market lately. Its got pieces and bits of material from 70 and 80's classics, like ''sting'' and ''the mole'', and the story is pretty tense to follow.

A bit slow on plot speed, and some lack on prescicionediting, its overflowed with decent filmatographic and dramaturgic cleverness, and the surprises never seems to end. A bit dull is the musical score, and the acting never reaches the upper cut, but entertaining it is. So without blood and gore and heavy shootouts, the grumpy old man recommends this kinda spy chess.

This spy thriller is more about spy-relationships with hardly any thrills. It's a very slow burn, and I can see how many would become impatient. I'm also not a fan of timeline back and forths, and this has many, and more than just two timelines. However, although not perfect, the timelines are what kept me intrigued to continue to watch, as they revealed small pieces of the puzzle throughout. The reward at the end is worth it imo, I just wish the felt-longer 101 min runtime with slow pacing had been shorter and faster. Huge credit goes to Pine and Newton for their exceptional performances, and another reason why I didn't throw in the towel mid-way, plus adding Fishburne and Pryce into the mix was a bonus. So if you don't go into this expecting a James Bond action spy thriller, and have the patience, you may enjoy it once it reaches the end. All the Old Knives had sharp performances, but the story-telling was dull and needed much sharpening. It's a 7.5 rounded up to an 8/10 from me.