ALL THE OLD KNIVES

The film utterly wastes a talented cast and has some final act twists in store that are far from convincing.

All the Old Knives promises a taut thriller wherein two CIA agents and former lovers meet for a dinner to discuss what happened eight years ago, when 120 people were killed in a hijacked plane, possibly the result of a mole inside the agency.

The film fails on that promise almost from the get-go however, as director Janus Metz does some uneasy juggling with past and present timelines while writer Olen Steinhauer - adapting his own novel – struggles to come up with suspenseful narratives or the kind of tense dialogue you need for a movie likes this to have an actual impact on the viewer.

It doesn't help either that All the Old Knives utterly wastes a talented cast, with Jonathan Pryce and Lawrence Fishburne sidelined for big parts of the tale and Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton not displaying an ounce of on-screen chemistry, which is a huge problem for a movie that has them sitting opposite of each other at a restaurant table for most of the picture.

Combine this with some final act twists that are far from convincing and you're left with a movie that you'll quickly forget.

release: 2022

director: Janus Metz

starring: Chris Pine, Thandiwe Newton, Laurence Fishburne, Jonathan Pryce