Sadly, Hurt’s final film is a forgettable trudge

When John Hurt died in January last year, a trio of his films had yet to be released. Of the three, That Good Night, a sentimental drama about a terminally ill writer, looked like the obvious swan song. But when it surfaced in May, it didn’t come close to eclipsing his ruminative priest in Pablo Larraín’s Jacqueline Kennedy biopic Jackie, which opened in UK cinemas five days before Hurt’s death.

Damascus Cover was the last film Hurt made – but it isn’t worth seeking out for that reason, or many others. Hurt plays a Mossad spymaster in the late Eighties, the kind of thickly creased character turn he could do in his sleep.

One of his charges is Ari Ben-sion (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an Israeli spook living under a false identity in soon-to-be-post-cold War Berlin, who is dispatched to Syria to smuggle out a chemical weapons scientist.

Ari’s mission is complicated by the presence of Kim (Juno’s Olivia Thirlby), an American photojournalist who becomes improbably embroiled in his mission, which loses any discernible dramatic shape as soon as it begins. The pair’s first encounter, in Israel, is almost rom-com-esque, then he bumps into this friendly young woman again in Damascus a few days later. What are the chances? In the view of this supposed ace spy, totally acceptable.

Not that the plot is going anywhere fast. Adapted and updated from a novel by Howard Kaplan, the storyline is an unstirring trudge, with Rhys Meyers declaiming each line in the same sandpapery tenor, and occasionally battling Syrian goons in a vexingly period-inaccurate skinny-fit suit.

Despite the clumsy writing and production design, Thirlby and Hurt acquit themselves perfectly well, and Jürgen Prochnow makes an enjoyably ripe appearance as a former Nazi who unwittingly directs Ari to his target. Ari’s cover, incidentally, is that he is a carpet salesman seeking stock. But this thriller can’t pull a rug to save itself.