Can The Courier deliver for cinemas?
THE new Benedict Cumberbatch film The Courier really ought to bring audiences back into British cinemas.
It is based on the oddly moving true story of Greville Wynne, a very ordinary businessman inveigled by MI6 into risking his liberty and health by smuggling secrets out of the Communist bloc. It is a beautifully made and enthralling drama, full of thought and action and with some fine acting. It is just the right length – long enough to absorb and take you out of daily life, not so long that you begin to shift in your seat and wonder when it will end.
Yet when I watched it, there was hardly anyone there. I do begin to worry that proper cinemas may be one of the long-term casualties of the past 18 months of panic and fear.