The November Man (review)

 An ex-CIA operative is brought back in on a very personal mission and finds himself pitted against his former pupil in a deadly game involving high level CIA officials and the Russian president-elect. (from IMDB.com)

The November Man stars Pierce Brosnan (Remington and Mrs. Steele), Luke Bracey (G.I.Joe:  Retaliation), Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace), and Bill Smitrovich (Millenium). You will likely recognize several of the other actors playing second string characters.

The movie is based on the book There are No Spies by Bill Granger. I have not read the book. If anyone has, please speak up as to whether or not it's worth picking up.

Pierce Brosnan makes his return to the world of the spy/thriller genre with a solid movie.

An ex-CIA operative is brought back in on a very personal mission and finds himself pitted against his former pupil in a deadly game involving high level CIA officials and the Russian president-elect.

It stars Pierce Brosnan (Remington and Mrs. Steele), Luke Bracey (G.I.Joe:  Retaliation), Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace), and a bald Bill Smitrovich (Millenium). You will likely recognize several of the other actors playing second string characters.

The movie is based on the book There are No Spies, by Bill Granger. I have not read the book. If anyone has, please speak up as to whether or not it's worth picking up. The book and movie are likely very divergent, that does not matter to me.

There was much speculation over the ending of Pierce Brosnan's run as Ian Fleming's James Bond. A role he strove for during and following his run on Remington and Mrs. Steele. A role I felt he was destined to play and a role I feel was destroyed by the end of his run. His third and fourth were the first Bond films I remember never seeing in the theatre. (But Goldeneye, oh Goldeneye, you were a thing of beauty.) He has repeatedly held the line that the end of his run was a decision of the production company deciding to move in a different direction. Seven years after The World is Not Enough, Casino Royale hit the big screen and proved they went in a new direction like they said they would. Post The World is Not Enough, Pierce Brosnan has stayed away from action roles. Pierce Brosnan makes his return to the world of the spy/thriller genre with a solid movie. 

Pierce Brosnan plays Devereaux, a man who retired from the spy business, lives in Europe where he runs a cafe, and has a deeply burried secret that even his old friends know nothing about. The movie starts by setting up the primary male leads of Peirce Brosnan, Luke Bracey, and Bill Smitrovich's character. An Op goes down, tradecraft saves the life of the bad guy's target, but there is blowback due to a mistake. You find out later how much blowback likely occurred. We aren't told, we're just shown what paperwork was filled out. Flash forward a few years and Devereaux is a retired man when Hanley (Bill Smitrovich), his former handler, walks back into his life. Hanley shows some evidence of bad things happening and who he thinks is next, an old acquaintance of Deveraeux's.

This is a basic set up. As we move through the story, we discover that opposing players (from the same team) are working to exfil the next target, a bad ass Russian assassin (played by Amila Terzimehic), and several different reversal reveals. We learn the truth from the bad guys (of course) and it's a truth we can't handle (but we will). We learn what buried secret exists about our hero, and there are at least three reversals of who is a good guy, who is a bad guy, and who is just a selfish bastard. The movie does not confirm the death of all the characters, which could leave it open to more movies. However, I don't think another movie is needed. Everything is wrapped up in a mostly neat bow by the time credits roll.

There are elements of other spy/thriller movies at play. At times I was reminded of Bond, Bourne, and even Sam. Throughout it all, Pierce Brosnan plays it to the hilt. He is conflicted over his secret, conflicted over who is burning who, conflicted over he should let others get their revenge their way or his own, and uses whisky as necessary. In a way, this is James Bond five years later. He's done, retired, making a living outside the Agency, the Company, or in Bond's case, MI6. When completely stressed, he turns to alcohol, a feature of the Bond films I find is not as solid in movies as it is in the books. All Devereaux wants to do is the right thing to help the people that need the help.

This movie is not for people who do not like the spy genre. This movie is not for people who like big, over the top, spy movies such as Bourne or Bond. There are big scenes, but it is not a movie filled with big explosions and over the top chase scenes. It is more realistic (as much as movies can be) than that. It is a movie where the characters try to do smart things to outwit the others, before shooting each other. If this movie does not do well at the box office, it is because it does not pander to the stereotypical movie goers who just want to sit and watch a screen.

This movie is for people who like the genre. There is action, there is very little blood, and enough thinking for people who want a little brain candy. Do not think too hard throughout the movie, as there are a couple of things that occur which made me do a double take. There was nothing in the movie that made me feel like I had to see it on the big screen. It would be just as good on the television via your video provider of choice. The movie was fun to watch and is not overly bloody. In face, in most scenes involving blood, they are reaction scenes - as they should be. Showing blood after the fact reinforces the point someone was just injured. Showing blood during the fact is a way to show off the action and does nothing to move the story forward.

Moving the story forward is something done very well in this film. The writing is tight and the editing follows right along. There are not a lot of extra story bits included in the movie. The movie is stripped down to what is needed and stays focused on just that. At the same time, nothing feels left out. We need to know Devereaux is a former spy, who is a bad ass, and is thrust back into his old life. That is what we get. I find we get more than that in movie's today. I don't want exposition. I want a tight story that moves along and gets me to the end. Exposition will show itself in the actions of the characters and the actors portraying them.

For those of you playing Night's Black Agents or other spy games (Spycraft, Top Secret, or even James Bond), this is a good movie for you. The activities are present for you to see and count the spends. When Bill Smitrovich's character is being questioned, he spends the points to resist interrogation, playing the situation back on the interrogator. They then spend more points to bad ass the situation up. When Luke Bracey is racing to save the day at the end of the film, he burns through at least six points in Athletics and likely another 10 in Firearms, looking like the pro he is throughout the entire sequence. When Devereaux needs money or to move between locations, it stays in the background like it should with an NBA game. "I spend Preparedness and hand a wad of money to the girl" and then we see the money exchange hands. There is no, "Let's go show where all of this money is hidden" business you see in many movies. We already know Devereaux is a bad ass, so why would we need to watch him go get his money? On the technology side, there is a hand held cell phone tracker that I do not recall seeing in a film, before. We see the use of an aerial, unarmed drone. They even track cell phones that are not being used to locate someone.

Streets of Bedlam: A Savage World of Crime + Corruption quick review

I just finished reading Streets of Bedlam from FunSizedGames. Once again, Jason L Blair delivers product worthy of the genre for which it is designed. If you are looking for a noir or neo-noir game without all the magic and superheroes we often see in rpg products today, this game delivers. 

This game was produced as a Kickstarter project. I did not back it. I picked it up later based on word of mouth and having enjoyed prior works by Jason L Blair.

Streets of Bedlam uses the rules from Savage Worlds. This is a good fit and Jason provides new and interesting Edges and Hindrances for the setting. By using Savage Worlds, he's also set it up for GMs to drop in magic and superheroes, if they want to do so. 

The materials provides examples and samples culled from the neo-noir world of comics, books, and movies, making it easier to step into the game. The company website provides further digital enhancements for the game, including archetypes, Five Story Drop a scenario/story book, soundtrack, and a dice and dice bag combo. 


I think games in this setting can suffer from "more than one hero" syndrome. After all, most noir fiction features a hero, femme fatale, and sidekick at best. To account for that, Jason has provided rules for just such a game! However, I think a group that does character creation together can easily overcome "more than one hero" and a GM who plays to the Edges and Hindrances can easily create a campaign for the group.

Streets of Bedlam believes in the "investigators must gain all pertinent clues in every scene" methodology which fans of GUMSHOE are familiar with using. However, SoB goes a slightly different direction in that Jason L Blair provides a method of feeding the players clues that are spot-on and clues that are misleading. This prepares GMs to think about providing misleading information or information that gets the players to the end result in a different manner. After all, this is neo-noir, not everthing should come easy to the characters. There is a clue sheet at the end of the book to help GMs make proper notes about which clues are good or bad.

I really enjoyed was the sample scenario:  The Things We Do for Money. In the text, interviews with NPCs includes text written as the answers to potential questions from the PCs. This really makes the scenario much more fluid, more usable for any group encounter, and gives the GM flavor text to allow them to change up how the different NPCs come across to the players. 

All in all, this is the best Savage Worlds game I've seen in a long time and another feather in the cap for Jason L Blair and FunSizedGames' hats.

Page Count:
Credits and Intro:  16 pages
Setting:  27 pages
Character Creation:  68 pages
New Rules:  34 pages
Sample NPCs:  62 pages
Sample Scenario:  44 pages
Wrap up:  5 pages

Devil May Care about this post

Sebastian Faulks’ Devil May Care is the first James Bond not written by Ian Fleming that I have enjoyed reading. Faulks goes back to the Cold War era, the height of Bond action. We find Bond on sabbatical, forced by M to relax and evaluate whether he should come back to the service or not. We all know that final answer, but Faulks guides us down that path with new enemies, new loves, and plenty of fast paced action.

Gone is SMERSH, but the land of the hammer and sickle still factors into the story. As does a beautiful woman, double crossing allies, and an enemy worth hating. Nowhere are the fancy gadgets that would overtake the action of the movies and the Raymond Benson novels. Instead, Bond relies on ingenuity and his skills to defeat those who would do the world harm.

Bond travels to Paris, then Persia (yes, Persia) to investigate a man with a monkey hand who travels with a Viet Minh aid. Along the way, he meets Larissa Rossi, the beautiful banker whose sister works for Dr. Julius Gorner, person of interest. We get a quick glimpse of Matthis, well before the events of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace as Bond works through Paris en route to Persia. Once in Persia, Bond makes contact with the local agent works his way to Dr. Gorner’s warehouse on the docks of the Caspian Sea with Scarlett Papava and his local driver. From here, things go sideways and Commandre Bond is soon fighting for his life before saving the world. . . and Miss Papava.

I think Devil May Care will appeal to Bond fans of old, especially those who enjoyed the novels. However, I think new fans brought in by the films starring Daniel Craig can also enjoy this book. The pace of the book is quick and spurs its reader forward. There is no lengthy explanation of how this gadget or that gadget works. Each chapter fills one of two rolls – foreshadowing or bringing the action. From this viewpoint, Faulks appears to combine the best of the Fleming novels and the movies.

If you are looking for a Bond that woos multiple women, shoots bullets out of fountain pens, or would rather love than fight, this isn’t the Bond for you. However, if you have a few hours’ time and want a thriller that is a quick read, then you’re in luck.

Judgement is Here

The new Judge Dredd movie, Dredd 3D, stars Karl Urban as a law provider in Mega City One and Olivia Thirlby as rookie Judge Anderson. Yes, that Judge Anderson. This movie claims nothing to do with the Stallone-Assante-Schneider-Prochnow-von Sydow-Lane movie from 1995.

Judge Dredd is a British comic book first published in 1977 (making it the same age as my little brother).

The movie opens up with a brief voice-over by Urban slightly explaining the world. For those not familiar with Judge Dredd, it is a bad time to be alive. One megacity runs along the east coast from around Boston to south of the District of Columbia. Mortality rates are high, unemployment rates are high, and crime is so bad the “Judges” are created. In this dystopian future, the judicial system became so back logged that police officers were given the right to become judge, jury, and (when necessary) executioner. These are the Judges. The Judges are armed with special weapons (“lawgivers”), wear good equipment, and ride rad motorcycles (“lawmasters”). The movie does not spend much time going into the inner workings of the Judges, the hall of justice, and other background information such as those. It provides us with touch pieces we can relate to, twists them enough for us to realize they are different, and then shows them to us in this new world.

For me, that is exactly where this movie fails. The first Dredd movie made sure we understood the world. We knew what the judicial system was about. We understood what Judges were up against on a day to day basis. Here, we just know that Judges are similar to our police. We know the world is a gritty, ugly place. We do not know that the Judges are the ruling body of law in Mega City One. We do not know that Judges like Joe Dredd and his brother Rico were genetically created.

If you do not know the setting going into the movie, you will not know the setting leaving the movie.

That said, as a fan of Judge Dredd via the British comics and not the horrible DC comics, I thought the producers did several things correct. First, this movie is a “day in the life” look at what Judges go through. The movie opens with a chase sequence that ends poorly for the perp. By shooting the movie in South Africa, Americans will likely not recognize the scenery, lending it an otherworldly presence. The movie furthers the “day in the life” feel by only dealing with one real scenario – the investigation of three deaths in a “block.” There is no big, overarching metaplot about Judges losing control, ABC Warriors being used by an evil twin, or a big, dumb, resident of the Big Stinkie being reduced to a comedic sidekick whose best line is a “Cursed Earth Pizza” joke. Instead we receive a less than thirty minute intro to the movie with voice over, chase sequence, and introduction of the rookie Judge that Dredd must take out on the street and judge her performance.

That is what the comic did, issue after issue. It kept the main storyline in your face and focused. If there was a metaplot, it had to stay in the background. As a serial comic book series, it could not sit out front and hog the limelight. Yes, there were strips where the metaplot was in your face, but that was all that was in focus. It allows for the forest versus trees versus forest view.

The 3D special effects are put to great use in the movie. The bad guys control a city block, which in this case is a 200-story tall apartment complex, complete with shops and a medical center. Within this block, they produce a drug they call, “Slo-Mo.” The affects of Slo-Mo is that your brain processes everything in slow motion. The movie often switches view from our perception to that of the drug users, utilizing the 3D technology to give us insight into their world. Colors are more vibrant, streams of water can be seen instead of gouts of water, falling water droplets can be seen at different depths on screen, and the facial expressions of the users are slowed down to exaggerate the effect. There are not many combat 3D special effects in the movie. They are not needed.

Speaking of combat and violence, there is more in this movie than you might expect. If you find yourself thinking, “Oh, they won’t show that perp falling 200 stories and splatting on the deck,” you would be wrong. They do show it. They show bullets entering and exiting bodies. They show glimpses of skinning bodies. They show the remnants of those bodies that feel 200 stories and went splat. I would put the amount of violence and gore in this movie on par with Punisher:  War Zone. In fact, there is quite a resemblance between the two movies. Both are about ultra-violent ant-heroes going through a building killing bad guys. In fact, PWZ may have more plot to it than Dredd 3D.

The look and feel of the movie is dark and gritty. I have seen it referred to as “neo-noir” and it does appear to fit that moniker. We see the tall blocks, we see waste and trash, the hall of justice stands out in cleanliness and sterility. Judge Dredd has the look of a mean Dirty Harry* combined with Mad Max's leather, while rookie Judge Anderson is cleaner, more innocent looking. Shadows abound in this movie, providing depth and potential for meaning. Judge Anderson also provides subjectivity against Judge Dredd’s more black and white world-view. She has a life background that provides her the ability to see more possibilities while on the job than review, arrest, judge. The action is hard boiled with the Judges and perps playing for keeps in this non-stop action flick. You want machine guns? You get them. You want gas grenades? You get those, too. You want lawgivers that don’t like incorrectly DNA-coded hands trying to use them? Yes, you will see what happens to those perps, as well.

At the end of the day, this is a movie for fans of the Judge Dredd comic book series who want an over the top, action packed, helmet never being removed, gore fest where at the end of the day, perps are adjudicated.

*Has anyone else noticed that Arnie appears to be doing an impression of Clint Eastwood in the trailers for The Last Stand?

Free Book, Skyrim, BRP, and Pendragon link dump

Today's a short day, so I thought I would toss out some links.

I discussed James Hutching's The New Death and Others here. Well, it's free on Amazon for a week or two. If you are remotely interested in it, I would say now is the time to pick it up.

When I'm home, I've been spending time playing Skyrim. I have been thinking of running a fantasy rpg sometime after I'm done running AFMBE. That, of course, leads to looking at stealing ideas from Skyrim. After all, the technological level is about where I want it for an rpg. James Desborough discussed using BRP or a variant of it, such as Legend or Runequest on the Postmortem Studios page.

BRP links: BRP, BRP quickstart, Runequest, Legend, Discussions,

Although, you could do Skyrim with DnD or a variant, quite honestly.

I've picked up Pendragon and The Great Pendragon Campaign after Lowell pointed me in the direction of actual play articles that are fun to read. You'll find the actual plays in the blog section of that Great Pendragon Campaign link. I'm reading through the corebook, now, and hope to gather my thoughts on it for you once I've finished it.

Review: The New Death and Others by James Hutchings

The New Death and Others by James Hutchings is a collection of short stories and poetry. Published in 2011, this eBook can be found on both Amazon and Smashwords and contains 44 stories with 19 poems. The current retail price is $0.99.

The tales within this collection run the gamut of funny to horrific, long and short, and truthful l, yet not. Readers of such authors as H.P. Lovecraft, Neil Gaiman, Robert E. Howard, and perhaps Voltaire may enjoy reading this short tome. Mr. Hutchings appears to be influenced by those authors and many more.

For those of you looking for your own inspiration, I think you will find it in these pages. Mr. Hutchings relives tales from Robert E. Howard’s Kull in “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune,” giving us a new take of the same story. He also delves into the world of Lovecraft with “Under the Pyramid.” He provides gods, monsters, and men – complete with desires base and unseemly.

Mr. Hutchings modernizes old tales, such as Rumpelstiltskin. He brings them into the 21st century and introduces old concepts to new, with tales such as “A Date With Destiny” (internet dating), “The Jeweled City” (we are but the thoughts of an author in a Microsoft Word document), and “The Auto-Pope” gives us a story of robots.

Commentary on today’s world of love moves beyond internet dating with “Compatibility” while “The Uncharted Isle” gives way to “Weary Love” wherein Commerce takes over for Love at the call center. Yet, Mr. Hutchings does not stop there when it comes to love. He delves in to the realm of concept-gods, ala Neil Gaiman, and reveals that even the gods have trouble in the world of love.

Mr. Hutchings does not shy away from any topics. He dives into politics with “Monsters” and reminds us of our modern horrors. Rumpelstiltskin’s tale doubles as commentary upon what one can do for work, when one can do nothing else.

He even includes ninjas.

The medium-length tales in The New Death and Others do little for me. The voice of the story is oft times lost on me and the voices of the characters too often sound the same. I lost my place looking at the text of these stories for too long. Mr. Hutchings should work on establishing voice as quickly in these medium-length tales as he does in his short pieces.

The shortest works are better than their more medium sized brethren. They are quick blurbs about a topic and often meant to be funny. Taken in small doses, they help to break up the monotony of their larger cousins.

The best works in this book are those of more significant length. Mr. Hutchings does a fine job telling tales through prose or poetry, when he lets himself become long in the tooth. In these stories, he does a much better job of bringing forth the horror and mystery reminiscent of Lovecraft and Howard. In some of these tales, he also delves into the world of Teleleli, a world he has created and continues to develop in his blog. “The God of the City of Dust” is set in this setting, called Teleleli. It describes the actions of three priestesses, the followers of a rival deity, and what comes of converting from one deity to another.

The tale of “Todd” reminds me of something I would expect by John Shirley or Jack Ketchum. The story begins nice and neat and becomes a bloody mess by the end. Or, at least in my mind it becomes a bloody mess. We are not really told what happened to Todd and Kimberly, but I guarantee you it was not a nice thing to write home about.

Overall, the quality of material is a steal for less than one dollar. I think Mr. Hutchings should continue to work on his prose and poetry, continue to expand his ability to wax verbose, and continue to write. His writing in this novel comes across as very “common” and no yet refined into a style of his own. It is obvious that he loves his work and for a first outing, this collection of writing is not a bad one.

Fans of Vertigo comics, early fantasy authors, and role players looking for ideas should enjoy this book. However, if none of the topics I have mentioned throughout this review are of interest to you, I cannot recommend picking this work up.

I have attempted to provide you, the reader, with not only quick glimpses into the material contained within this volume, but also with my thoughts on the author’s abilities.

I would give this book a rating of 3 out of 5 stars. The topics at hand are good, but the writing itself needs more development.