Freely adapted from prolific spy scribe Le Carre's 1993 novel, this quickly gets going - and gripping - but is every bit as far-fetched as a Bond movie. Ex-army officer Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) is a night manager at the swanky Nefertiti hotel in uptown Cairo. During the Arab Spring, the beautiful mistress of a dodgy local playboy entrusts him with a document implicating famous businessman/philanthropist Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) in arming terrorists. When he leaks it to Simon Ogilvy (Russell Tovey) at the British Consulate, the consequences for them both are shattering.
This has all the right ingredients: glamorous locations, a good-looking cast, subterfuge, violence, sex, good vs. bad and so on. It's engrossing in the same way as a well-put-together, handsomely mounted Hollywood movie. The slight glitch for an English audience is the self-same cast. Hiddleston is a great hero, but an unlikely night manager, while we kept expecting Laurie to reprise his goggle-eyed Regency Prince from 'Blackadder' and Tovey to be the cheeky chappie he usually plays. Horribly unfair to the actors, who turn in top-class performances, along with Olivia Colman as gutsy intelligence agent and mum-to-be Angela Burr, and several other staple Brits besides.
Escapist and a good ad for the intelligence services if you are reckless. It isn't after all the governments who wield the power and pose the threat these days. Businessmen are rather less exposed.
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