Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. carries the tagline “Saving the world never goes out of style.” Warner Bros. Pictures released it on August 14, 2015, after a Barcelona premiere on August 2. It runs 116 minutes. It is a Cold War spy comedy that cannot decide how funny it wants to be. It scores 5.6/10.
Trailer, via Warner Bros..
Solo Pulls Gaby Out of East Berlin
The plot starts in 1963. CIA agent Napoleon Solo, played by Henry Cavill, extracts Gaby Teller from East Berlin. She is the daughter of nuclear scientist Dr. Udo Teller. She does not know Solo. A mechanic raised her almost two decades earlier.
Solo and KGB agent Illya Kuryakin, played by Armie Hammer, are then ordered to work together. Their targets are Alexander and Victoria Vinciguerra, Nazi sympathizers who want Udo Teller to build them a private nuclear weapon.
The pairing has real tension on paper. Solo is a former Second World War soldier who became a high-profile thief, recruited by the CIA rather than face jail time. Kuryakin has been fully briefed on Solo and told to kill him if necessary.
That is a strong engine for a spy picture. Ritchie uses it early and then lets it idle. The film lists comedy, action and adventure as its genres and never picks a lane.
A Cover in Rome and a Watch Left Untaken
The men travel to Rome with Gaby. Her uncle Rudi, played by Sylvester Groth, works for the Vinciguerras. Kuryakin and Gaby pose as an engaged couple so he can access the family.
One scene has weight. Ordinary muggers take Kuryakin’s father’s watch, and he does not fight them, because fighting would blow his cover. Hammer plays the moment with a stillness the rest of the film rarely asks of him.
Solo and Kuryakin break into a Vinciguerra shipping yard and find traces of uranium. While escaping by water, Kuryakin nearly drowns. Solo saves him. It is the film’s best argument for itself: two men ordered to distrust each other, forced into a rescue.
Gaby Sells Them Out, Then Waverly Explains
The next day, Gaby meets with Rudi and Alexander and betrays Kuryakin and Solo to them. Rudi tortures Solo. Kuryakin rescues him and tortures Rudi, who reveals the weapon is hidden in an island fortress where Gaby has been reunited with her father.
Teller completes the weapon. Victoria, played by Elizabeth Debicki, kills him. Solo and Kuryakin are then approached by Alexander Waverly, an MI6 officer played by Hugh Grant, who reveals Gaby is his undercover officer.
The reveal reframes the betrayal. The film does not linger on what it cost Gaby to sell out two men she had been traveling with.
They infiltrate the Vinciguerras’ compound. Solo finds Kuryakin’s stolen watch on a guard, a small payoff that lands. Alexander Vinciguerra attempts to escape with the warhead, but is intercepted and killed. Solo retrieves the disc with Teller’s research and realizes Alexander’s warhead was a decoy.
The cast is long and used unevenly:
- Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo
- Armie Hammer as Illya Kuryakin
- Alicia Vikander as Gaby Teller
- Elizabeth Debicki as Victoria Vinciguerra
- Hugh Grant as Waverly
- Jared Harris as Sanders
- Luca Calvani as Alexander
Harris and Grant are both fine actors given little to do. Grant’s Waverly arrives late and leaves the film’s memory almost immediately.
Clooney Left, Cruise Left, Cavill Stayed
The production history explains some of the seams. John Davis obtained the film rights in 1993, working from the 1964 MGM television series created by Norman Felton and Sam Rolfe. Rewrites piled up and the project stalled for years. Matthew Vaughn, David Dobkin and Steven Soderbergh were each optioned to direct before Ritchie signed on in March 2013.
Casting was just as unsettled. George Clooney showed interest in November 2010 and was in talks for the lead role of Napoleon Solo, but left in September 2011 due to a recurring back injury. A long list of actors was considered for the lead: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ryan Gosling, Channing Tatum, Alexander Skarsgård, Ewan McGregor, Robert Pattinson, Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Michael Fassbender, Bradley Cooper, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joel Kinnaman, Russell Crowe, Chris Pine, Ryan Reynolds and Jon Hamm.
Tom Cruise entered early talks for the lead on March 18, 2013. Armie Hammer was cast as Illya Kuryakin on April 24, 2013, with Cruise set as Solo. Alicia Vikander joined on May 8, 2013. Cruise dropped out on May 23, 2013, because of his commitment to Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. Henry Cavill replaced him.
Elizabeth Debicki was cast in a femme fatale role on July 31, 2013; Rose Byrne and Charlize Theron had been considered for the same part. Hugh Grant joined on August 8, 2013, as Waverly, the head of United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. Jared Harris was cast as Sanders on September 4, 2013, and Luca Calvani as the villain Alexander.
That is a decade of turnover. The finished film feels assembled rather than composed.
The Budget Did Not Buy a Soul
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. received mixed reviews from critics and was a box office bomb. It grossed only $110 million worldwide on a $75 million budget. That is not a rounding error. It is a loss.
Rolling Stone listed the movie 50th on the best action movies of all time. That placement is generous. It says more about the durability of the source material’s cool than about this film’s execution.
The 1964 series had a premise built for television: two agents, one American, one Soviet, forced into partnership. Ritchie’s version has the same premise and better production values. It does not have a reason to exist beyond nostalgia. The Cold War setting is decoration, not pressure. The nuclear threat is a plot device, not a fear.
What works is the physical business. The water escape, the watch on the guard, the torture-and-rescue exchange between Solo and Kuryakin — these are scenes with shape. What does not work is everything around them: the pacing, the underused supporting cast, the sense that the film is quoting a genre rather than committing to one.
Cavill is charming and Hammer is game. Neither is the problem. The script gives them a partnership to perform rather than one to earn. By the time Waverly reveals Gaby’s real allegiance, the film has spent so long on surfaces that the reveal cannot land as a betrayal. It lands as a plot point.
The decoy warhead is the film’s thesis in miniature. What looked like the threat was never the threat. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. looks like a spy movie. It is a well-dressed imitation of one, and the budget did not buy it a soul.
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