I feel for actor Pierce Brosnan though I probably shouldn’t.  He’s handsome, well known, and keeps busy.  I’m pretty sure he also makes/has made a very decent living as an actor.  Still…

I first came to know of Mr. Brosnan, like many of my age, through his work in the TV show Remington Steele (1982-87).  The show was popular enough for people to notice Mr. Brosnan and, given that at that time Roger Moore was showing his age and it was clear he wouldn’t be able to continue playing James Bond for much longer, it became a foregone conclusion that Mr. Brosnan would be taking over the role.

Which made the by then faltering Remington Steele show get a second wind, ratings wise and be renewed for the 1987 TV season.  Because Mr. Brosnan was still under contract for the show, he was unable to move on into the James Bond role for the 1987 film The Living Daylights.  The role went to Timothy Dalton and with that movie’s success, it seemed Mr. Brosnan had missed his opportunity.  However, the second (and it turned out, last) Timothy Dalton outing, License to Kill, was something of a flop and, for a while, it appeared that the James Bond franchise was teetering on the edge of collapse.

Mr. Brosnan got his second chance to play Bond a full eight years after the cancellation of Remington Steel with 1995’s Goldeneye.  I recall being very excited to see him in the movie though I never was one of those who hated Timothy Dalton’s take on the character.  In fact, I felt Mr. Dalton was quite good in the two films he participated in.  But License to Kill, Timothy Dalton or not, was a terrible film, one of my least favorite Bond features, and it didn’t surprise me when the producers didn’t want Dalton back.

When Goldeneye was released, I was so there at the theater, dying to see Mr. Brosnan’s take on the character.

Turned out, I was incredibly disappointed.

Many consider Goldeneye the best of the four Brosnan Bond films.  I feel all four of the films committed the greatest sin any Bond film could commit: They were all so terribly, terribly mediocre.  Forgettable even.  So much so that I have to actually check to see how many films he made because the movies’ plots, to my mind, bleed into each other with little cohesion.

Disappointment led to inevitability.  When Mr. Brosnan’s last Bond outing, Die Another Day, was released in 2002, it felt like this was the end of the beloved spy.  It wasn’t of course, but that’s recent history I’m sure most are aware of.

When I first heard about the 2014 feature The November Man, I felt that old excitement coming back.  The idea of seeing Mr. Brosnan take up the “superspy” mantle once again was irresistible.  And as I put the film into the DVD player and watched the first half hour or so, I was in bliss.

Here we had Pierce Brosnan playing Deveraux, effectively an R-rated version of Bond and a take on that character I’ve been dying to see.  He’s older and wiser, crankier and more foul mouthed, but deep inside he has a code of conduct and despite the foul business involving his job, he tries to let a little light into the world with his actions.

I was loving what I was seeing.

But after a while, the film let me down.  Like the Bond films he participated in, not because of Mr. Brosnan.  His superspy carried the film well despite its obvious low budget (much of the filming was done in the economically friendly countries of Serbia and Montenegro) and some of the plot twists in the story were fascinating to watch, but what killed The November Man for me was that at some point the film simply lost all credibility.

One scene in particular, involving Brosnan’s Deveraux confronting the prime candidate for Russia’s presidency, proved laughable in its improbability.  Without giving too much away, it strains credibility to think even a superspy as good as Deveraux could somehow and all alone make a frontal assault on such an important man, mow past his army of security guards, and actually get to him!  Then, afterwards, despite all the gunplay in the Hotel he’s staying at, it seems no staff in the Hotel (particularly one -she had to be- deaf cleaning woman) has noticed the assault!

It was from that point on that the film heaped incredulity upon incredulity and, frankly, the movie limped to its conclusion with our main character essentially hoping others would miraculously come save his bacon (if you’ve seen the movie think about the ending…what exactly was Deveroux’s plan at that point?  He had none).

In sum, and despite a very game and pleasing performance from Mr. Brosnan, I cannot recommend The November Man.  A true shame.