The docudrama The Courier tells the true story of Greville Wynne, a British businessman who became entangled in espionage during the height of the Cold War. British and American intelligence were getting Kremlin secrets leaked by a high-ranking Soviet official. How to sneak the secrets out of the USSR? The whole point was to use an amateur because the KGB would be less suspicious, so the untrained salesman Greville Wynne was recruited. His experience was thrilling at first, and then searing.
The ordinary, avuncular Wynne is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, without his usual creepy sharpness. Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, House of Cards, Louder Than Bombs) plays a CIA officer. Georgian actor Merab Ninidze is solid as the Russian source. Jessie Buckley plays Wynne’s wife, and it’s good to see her cast in a mainstream movie after she was such a force of nature in indies Beast and Wild Rose
Cumberbatch, who is not a fleshy man, underwent a 21-pound weight loss to make Wynne frighteningly gaunt. To me, the risk to his health was just not worth it; The Courier is not close to a masterpiece like Raging Bull or The Pianist, and I would rather that Cumberbatch had played the part as his normally slender self.
The Courier does depict real events, but it grossly over-inflates the impact of this episode on the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, the general arc of the story is historically accurate.
Keep watching the end credits to glimpse the real Greville Wynne.
The Courier is streaming from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and redbox. It’s watchable, but not a Must See.