Scandals but no shocks in thriller that’s too cool
Backstabbing for Beginners
(out of 4) Starring Theo James, Ben Kingsley. Co-written and directed by Per Fly. Opens Friday at Carlton Cinema. 108 minutes. BRUCE DEMARA Great title. Too bad what follows doesn’t have the same insouciant charm.
Backstabbing for Beginners tells an important story, about the United Nations’ Oil for Food program instituted in Iraq in 2002 as the economic noose was tightening around the neck of evil dictator Saddam Hussein.
The program sold Iraqi oil ostensibly to supply food and medicine to the people as the economy crumbled around them. It turns out Saddam and a slew of behind-the-scenes creeps were getting a piece of the action even as suppliers were doling out bad medicine.
Enter young Michael Sullivan — plucked from obscurity because his late dad was a respected diplomat — who becomes an aide to Pasha, one of the key administrators of the program. Pasha has determined that it should continue, despite the blatant bribery and corruption going on.
Sir Ben Kingsley attacks the role of Pasha with relish, lobbing f-bombs with aplomb, but if ever a role called for a little more menace and less overthe-top bonhomie, this is it. The result is a performance that grates. You’ll literally find yourself mashing your molars.
Jacqueline Bisset (where have you been?) is nicely understated as Christina Dupre, an honest diplomat who wants to blow the whistle, but her screen time is all too brief. Brian Markinson as ostensible villain Rasnetsov is oily but underwhelming.
Theo James, who looks like a taller, lankier Harry Hamlin, plays the idealistic Michael with a sort of brooding reserve, but he isn’t very persuasive and his inevitable affair with Kurdish fugitive Nashim (Belcim Bilgin) has about as much sizzle as sushi.
The script, co-written by Danish director Per Fly, is probably the main culprit in this milquetoast effort. It feels so predictable that the inevitable revelations of this and that are all kind of ho-hum. Likewise, Fly’s direction feels too cool and detached, which is unfortunate for a film that is supposed to be a thriller and to exhort us to be outraged.
The story opens and closes with the good Michael giving the story to the Wall Street Journal — an apt choice — a respectable but dull news organ focused more on business than the intricacies of the human heart.