Rating of
4/4
The Spy Who Hated James Bond
SIngli6 - wrote on 09/04/22
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold was made at the height of spymania, and plays like an almost reactionary film against the genre in the way Todd Phillips' Joker is an answer to contemporary superhero-mania. It is so on-the-nose in this that it has Richard Burton's epically depressed Leamas beat up Bernard Lee, who played M at the time, because Lee was nice to an Italian man. There's even a shot in a nightclub that plays as a parody of a James Bond title sequence.
As a massive fan of the Bond films and other martini-flavoured spy fare, I absolutely loved this. It's important to always remember the ideological assumptions of the things we watch and appreciate criticism of them when it is well-founded. Well, the foundations of this are extremely strong, with a great script steeped in tragedy and stellar performances from thespians who know what they are doing. It's also a great thriller with a lot of twists and turns.
