Damascus Cover

From director Daniel Zelik Berk, the spy thriller Damascus Cover follows Israeli spy Ari Ben-Sion (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a man who is haunted by the death of his son and who now finds himself on a mission to smuggle a chemical weapons scientist out of Syria. Ari soon finds himself in the company of a young American photographer (Olivia Thirlby) and as the mission starts to go wrong, he discovers that he is merely a pawn in a much bigger plan.

Damascus Cover

Christina Radish is the Senior Entertainment Reporter at Collider. Having worked at Collider for over a decade (since 2009), her primary focus is on film and television interviews with talent both in front of and behind the camera. She is a theme park fanatic, which has lead to covering various land and ride openings, and a huge music fan, for which she judges life by the time before Pearl Jam and the time after. She is also a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Television Critics Association.

It's 1989, and the Berlin Wall is tumbling. In that city, Mossad agent Ari Ben-Sion (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) terminates a double-crossing operative feeding information to the Syrians. An Israeli agent in Damascus falls into the hands of Sarraj (Navid Negahban), the Syrian head of Mukhabarat. Fearful that Israel's entire Syrian spy network has been compromised, Mossad boss Miki (John Hurt, in his final role) dispatches Ari to Damascus to extract Angel, the highest ranking covert agent in the city.

Of course this being a spy thriller most of the characters are not who they claim to be, and Damascus Cover gets better as more onion layers are peeled. While the exceptionally awkward action climax stumbles as badly as the rest of the film, the denouement is excellent in offering a glimpse into the realpolitik world of puppet masters. Damascus Cover blows its cover early and often, but does leave behind tantalizing shrouds of what could have been.All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Based on the 1977 novel by Howard Kaplan, Damascus Cover is a political thriller film directed by Daniel Zelik Berk and stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Olivia Thirlby and John Hurt. Set during the weeks after the end of the Cold War in 1989, Meyers plays an undercover Mossad agent haunted by the death of his son. His mission is to extract a chemical weapons scientist out of Syria, however within days it backfires and in order to survive he has no other choice but to reach out to The Angel, a deep cover agent. He soon unveils a much darker plan. 041b061a72