Stream It Or Skip It: ‘All the Old Knives’ on Amazon Prime, a Romantic Thriller Starring Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton as Hot and Sexy Spies

Amazon Prime’s All the Old Knives tosses a ladleful of water on the coals for stars Thandiwe Newton and Chris Pine, who play CIA agents and former woo-hoo-ouch-ouch-scorching-hot flames rehashing past tragedies – at work and in love. Which isn’t to say that they were failures in bed; far from it, as you’ll see if you watch this steamy and suspenseful thriller from director Janus Metz (Borg vs. McEnroe) and writer Olen Steinhauer (adapting his own novel). Be warned, this movie features a scene in which Pine feeds Newton a thoroughly delicious-looking strip of bacon that may be interpreted in a very dirty way, so viewer discretion is advised.

ALL THE OLD KNIVES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Vienna, 2012. Flight 127 is parked on the tarmac. Terrorist hijackers are in control; all the passengers are hostages. A CIA team led by Vick Wallinger (Laurence Fishburne) is trying to handle the situation. Agents on hand include Henry Pelham (Pine), Celia Harrison (Newton) and Bill Compton (Jonathan Pryce). The situation quickly goes south. It’s tragic. And eight years later, the CIA still has so much egg on its face, it looks like the floor of a Waffle House. Wallinger pulls Pelham into his office. There’s been a break in the case, and it looks like there was a mole in the CIA feeding intel to the terrorists. It’s Pelham’s job to root out the mole and take care of it. Like, take care of it take care of it? Right: TAKE CARE OF IT.

Agents Compton and Harrison are his key interrogatees. Make that former agents. Compton retired and Harrison, deeply troubled by their failure, resigned. From here, I’m going to transition to something less formal while addressing Agent Pelham and ex-Agent Harrison, because back then, they were Henry and Celia, who, in-between doing the CIA thing, were doing the hotel-room horizontal thing. When Celia quit being a spy, she also quit being Henry’s S.O. Why? We’ll get into that, which includes many a flashback to the two of them really getting into each other, nudge nudge wink wink.

Celia takes Henry’s call and agrees to meet him for dinner. She’s married with two kids and a civilian job. They sit down at a practically empty restaurant, the type that only has wine on the drink menu and where the server really gets into the details of the compote on this and the glaze on that. Thus begins a more earnest than playful cat-and-mouse between the ex-lovairs, and a litany of flashbacks, to two weeks ago, when Henry verbally roughed-up Compton, and to eight years ago, when Wallinger was pressing his agents as they sussed out leads and details that might give them an edge over the hijackers. As they eat dinner, feeding each other succulent forkfuls of locally sourced this and delicately coddled that, Henry and Celia drill into the this and that of the hostage tragedy, which are intricately entwined with some of the this and that of the drillings into each other.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Old Knives takes the sad-romance sop of The English Patient and melds it with the high-stakes-work-meets-sizzling-hot-play tangle we’ve seen in movies like The Thomas Crown Affair, Duplicity or the modern masterpiece of steamy romantic thrillers, Out of Sight.

Performance Worth Watching: This might be Newton’s meatiest film role since her breakthrough in (regrettable) Oscar winner Crash. Pine lends Old Knives his swagger while she carries its emotional weight; credit her strong, empathetic performance that we feel invested in how the two ex-lovers’ story unfolds.

Memorable Dialogue: Pelham gets his marching orders inexplicitly not spelled out for him:

Wallinger: I need to know the man I send can do what’s necessary.

Pelham: You gonna say it?

Wallinger: No, Henry, I’m not.

Sex and Skin: The usual stuff of medium-soft-R hetero-erotic dramas: Toplessness, non-frontal bottomlessness, a sweaty sequence or three of pre-coital mutual mastication, from-the-waist-up coital commingling and post-coital snuggles.

Our Take: It makes sense: How else do you expect two inordinately attractive human beings to relieve the stress of a high-tension CIA gig? Doing puzzles? Going to the trampoline park? All the Old Knives is a sexy and absorbing medium-hot potboiler that layers in a few too many flashbacks but nonetheless holds our interest. Why? As Henry and Celia’s double-entendre dinner progresses, the scene cleverly segues from professional to personal interrogation: Hey, I know what happened back then was awful and a lot of innocent people died, but babe, why’d you leave me?

Not that Metz and Steinhauer undermine the gravity of the situation – the busted, unresolved romance never eclipses the dead-seriousness of the plot’s core tragedy. Good taste dictates as much, but it also renders the film a bit tonally suffocating. There’s no playful banter between two people who once loved the living shit out of each other and haven’t fully moved on, but Pine and Newton capture a sense of smoldering intimacy between the characters that’s lightly sensual even though it doesn’t quite burst into flame. Sexual tension is present, but intrigue drives the movie’s crankshaft (or should that be cranks the movie’s driveshaft? Guess it sounds vaguely naughty either way). It’s twisty and densely plotted, the two principals coyly volleying suspicion as they work their way through that one fateful – and hot, can’t forget the hot – night: “Well, you’ve convinced me,” Henry says. “Of what?” she replies. “That you’re very convincing.” We’re mostly convinced, too.

Our Call: STREAM IT. I don’t know if the way All the Old Knives can be almost stiflingly downcast, and I don’t know if the way it unfolds and resolves itself is entirely plausible. But it’s nevertheless a reasonably captivating, satisfying purple-hued mystery that’s worth your time.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.