Chris Pine

CHICAGO — WGN's Dean Richards talked to the stars of the new Amazon Prime thriller “All the Old Knives.” Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton star in the story of ...

Some friendships are for the ages, and actor Chris Pine sure seems like the perfect friend in deed. The Hollywood star is well known for his versatility, ...

He (Ben) is an incredible actor.” The film follows the story of an ex-marine turned mercenary who is betrayed and left for dead by his team. Some friendships are for the ages, and actor Chris Pine sure seems like the perfect friend in deed.

In a quirk of post-pandemic movie scheduling, the actor has two films screening simultaneously: international espionage drama "All the Old Knives" and ...

But putting Pine and Foster together again writes a check that “The Contractor” ultimately isn’t interested in cashing. “All the Old Knives” opens at Kendall Square Cinema and starts streaming on Amazon Prime Friday, April 8. Pine is excellent as the lovelorn, regretful rogue, even if most of Metz’s direction seems to be for him and Newton to gaze at each other across the table as “sexfully” as possible. “The Contractor” is a down-and-dirty action picture with a stern social conscience. “All the Old Knives” is a glossy, international espionage drama with beautiful actors falling in love in exotic locations, talking their way through a twisty plot based on a bestselling novel. Pine gave a similarly droll performance in 2017’s “Wonder Woman,” knowingly playing up the beefcake sincerity in a genre that usually doesn’t allow a lot of room for character work.

As the actor and producer stumps for the "small-ish" films he loves, he tells IndieWire about his route to the next venture: directing.

“My dad’s had a hell of a career,” he said. I just followed the giggle and took the giggle to wherever it took me, and at the end of that giggle was me directing this film. It’ll get me in a room and that’s great and I love getting in a room, but it won’t get it bought or made.” And it brings us back around to the old to-do list question, in perhaps a different form. Is Bob Pine there?’ He’d just go on and on and on making up these fucking stories.” Metz is the first person to note that it was Pine’s own passion for “All the Old Knives” that was as exciting for him as any other element of the Amazon Original film. “It seemed to be fated and it made a lot of sense. The film joins Pine’s growing list of producing projects, starting with Sheridan’s Black Dahlia–inspired limited series “I Am the Night,” which aired on TNT in 2019. “All the Old Knives” director Janus Metz, who met Pine early in the filmmaking process, said he was relieved that his already-attached star and producer was the “perfect choice” for the leading male role in the cerebral spy thriller. “‘The Contractor’ was a film that I read many years ago and had some stops and starts and was something I wanted to do. And yeah, that certainly can be the impetus.” (So there is a list!) “I never had a passion for acting, acting was something that seemed to pop out of nowhere and then just took over my life,” Pine said.

Amazon Prime's new spy thriller stars Chris Pine, Thandiwe Newton, Laurence Fishburne and Jonathan Pryce. Streaming starts April 8.

That’s the question that persists throughout, and when the answer is finally revealed, it’s not so much a shock as it is a tragedy. It works, largely because of the red-hot chemistry Pine and Newton share as Henry and Celia rehash the worst day of their lives. And when that guy is played by an actor as all-American as Chris Pine, you fully empathize with the unenviable task Henry must carry out, entirely aware a Putin-like death sentence awaits the guilty party.

Kiefer Sutherland has seen his share of action roles in films and TV over the years. He revealed what it was like to work with Chris Pine in "The Contractor ...

Yet he also appreciated what Chris Pine brought to the scene and how he thought about it in terms of what it meant within the larger context of the story of "The Contractor." "The thing that I enjoyed working with Chris so much for is that he has an incredible interest about not just how to be authentic from sentence to sentence, but what is the outcome of this scene, and how is it going to impact the outcome of the next scene and the next scene." "At the end of that very first scene with us, we want the audience to believe that [Harper]'s found the perfect world, that he's found a new family. In an exclusive interview, Sutherland spoke to Looper about this scene and what he enjoyed about sharing the screen with Pine in "The Contractor."

The suspects include Celia, who mysteriously left Henry post the mission failure for unexplainable reasons, and Bill Compton (Jonathan Pryce), Celia's boss.

Amazon Prime's geopolitical thriller can't match Tom Clancy's franchise, despite a sexual charge from the pairing of Pine and Thandiwe Newton.

Critics inclined to get angry that it takes the CIA mostly for granted might have a point, but this film is also unlikely to stir deeper cultural debate than what to watch on a Friday night after Mom and Dad have put the kids to bed and poured a few glasses of wine. For better or worse, the film names both Islamic terrorists and (indirectly) Vladimir Putin as the world’s bad guys, and underscores the trouble that ensues when other world powers try to take sides. In addition to their intellectual tete-a-tete, Pine and Newton engage in a bedroom showdown as well, a welcome rejoinder to social media grousing about a lack of love scenes in contemporary movies. The figure is extremely posable and comes with four different heads for separate expressions well as a wavy hair option. While there’s a possibility of a mole, the stronger likelihood is that Henry’s former coworker and lover Celia (Thandiwe Newton), or at least someone she knows, was the culprit. Chris Pine’s career as Jack Ryan came to an abrupt end after one movie, but much like George Lazenby and James Bond, that might just make him the perfect guy to play knock-offs of other iconic heroes.

The Contractor Movie Review: Critics Rating: 3.0 stars, click to give your rating/review,Try as hard as he might, Chris Pine can't rise above this ...

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All the Old Knives wants you to sweat and swoon in equal measure. Playing in the same tried and true sandbox as some of the great espionage thrillers before ...

Like a good snoop, All the Old Knives works its assets to maximum effect. The setup enables an extremely spare film, but the sheer gravity of Pine and Newton is the singularity pulling All the Old Knives‘ every element towards it. Against all this, the actual unraveling of the conspiracies at hand feels somewhat secondary; a potential demerit for anyone hankering for full-on George Smiley double-crosses or Hitchcockian nail-biting. It’s a smoldering closeness fostered not only by the beautiful use of the Jonathan Demme-style close-up, but also a chemistry you can taste––including a love scene so passionately constructed, it truly feels pulled from a bygone, frankly thirstier, era. Reuniting several years after an airline hijacking gone disastrously wrong, resulting in the deaths of all onboard, ex-lovers and ex-colleagues Henry Pelham (Chris Pine) and Celia Harrison (Thandiwe Newton) dine in a near-empty Carmel-by-the-Sea wine bar. This infatuation is wholly appropriate, because––chilly demeanor notwithstanding––All the Old Knives is a burning romantic at heart.

Last month, after only 40 days of retirement, Tom Brady announced that he would be returning to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for what will be his 23rd NFL ...

When Brady finally does retire for good, and when Hollywood decides that it’s time for a Brady biopic, it’s not hard to see them turning to the square-jawed Pine to play the iconic square-jawed quarterback. For his first mission as a private military contractor, he is sent on a Black Ops mission to Berlin to track down the head scientist of a virology laboratory who is said to be working on a vaccine for the H1N1 virus. The Contractor is a vehicle for Pine that allows him to demonstrate the full range of his action hero abilities and allows us to see him as no mere Matt Damon knockoff but as a legitimate action star in his own right. Their mission is to seize not only the scientist but his research data in order to prevent the creation of a possible bioterror weapon. Having grown up in a military family, the notion of offering his body for his country is in his blood. Can we really not simply enjoy a solid 100-minute action movie without having to be preached to about the virtues of deferring to whatever goes by the name science? We’re all mercenaries in the end.” The appropriately named Rusty Jennings (Kiefer Sutherland), a grizzled, menacing-looking head of the private military company James will be joining, goes a step further: “We gave them our minds, our bodies, and our spirit. Not only that, but his bloodwork is so problematic that he is dismissed from the Army altogether, receiving an honorable discharge but forfeiting his benefits, which include his pension and healthcare. Brianne is the wife of Sgt. James Harper (Chris Pine), a ranger in the U.S. Army Special Forces. James is coming off four tours of duty in five years with the Army, serving in both Afghanistan and Iraq. After his most recent tour, James had promised Brianne that that overseas tour was his last. James begins training once again for active duty, complete with runs through the woods, innumerable pushups, sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber, and what appear to be some attempts to brush up on his Middle Eastern languages. When the Harpers are faced with a series of mounting bills that include a roof in need of repair, James decides that he will help pay his family’s way out of debt through the only way of life he knows: combat. In February, it appeared that Bündchen had finally succeeded in convincing her husband to retire, only to have him retract his retirement announcement not even six weeks after he had made it.

The 'Star Trek' leading man Chris Pine talks to James Mottram about navigating Hollywood's choppy waters, his two new spy films, and why he won't stop ...

“I would be a liar to say that I’m not searching for some sort of critical success with these films,” he says. It was only when he was acting himself and travelled to Italy that he understood the popularity of his dad, Robert. After studying English at Berkeley, it was between journalism and acting – and he chose to become “a teller of stories”, as he puts it. “One of my best friends was an ER doctor and his father was a psychiatrist, so it makes a lot of sense that much of life is imitating your parents – and I’ve done that to some extent.” A year after his 2003 debut in an episode of ER, he played Anne Hathaway’s love interest in The Princess Diaries 2. And what does that say about bloodlust? And what does that say about the idea of revenge? that I hope we have brought back to the screen.” This is very Chris Pine. One minute, he’s referencing Abraham Maslow and his “ hierarchy of needs” theory that first appeared in Psychological Review in 1943. “I have often thought if I had a coat of arms, it would say ‘In reverentia semper’, which means ‘In awe, always.’ I just try to be like that,” he says. Pine, 41, is carved out of the same granite of most modern Hollywood men (including his namesakes Pratt and Hemsworth): handsome, chiselled and equipped with the ability to effortlessly play the hero without really getting out of breath. He points to his character James Harper, an ex-special forces sergeant discharged from the army who takes up private contract work to support his family.

Fans of Chris Pine find themselves with an embarrassment of riches this weekend, with All the Old Knives hitting Prime Video on Friday and The Contractor, ...

And all that would be okay if the action sequences were more than “serviceable,” if this were the pure action movie promised audiences with lines like “from the producer of John Wick” in the ads. And the contractor has to go on the run. In this picture Pine is not a CIA agent but a retired special forces soldier, James Harper, who is forced out after a new commanding officer discovers his body is flush with HGH and other drugs designed to help him overcome the wounds he’s suffered through the years. The Contractor is closer to what that imagined version of All the Old Knives would look like. Fans of Chris Pine find themselves with an embarrassment of riches this weekend, with All the Old Knives hitting Prime Video on Friday and The Contractor, released last weekend, still fresh on VOD and in theaters. Everyone here has secrets, and one of the joys of the film is watching them get teased out.

The film opens with a harrowing flashback as a terrorist hijacking unfolds aboard a plane. The CIA's Vienna Field Office is thrown into chaos as they try to ...

There is some irony in the fact that All The Old Knives is set in 2012 because it feels like a film that was made in the late-aughts-early-teens. Pine and Newton are its saving grace, with their performances elevating it just above the waters of drowning in its own self-importance. It’s a decent enough script, though it relies too heavily on the “the CIA are the good guys” trope, and it never fully unpacks that sentiment. It’s really confounding when the rest of the camerawork helps to build up the uncertain intrigue of the plot and crafts a really beautiful image. Pine and Newton have spectacular chemistry and that connection carried the burden of a disjointed script. On the day of the hijacking, Henry and Celia were head-over-heels in love and planning to move in together, but in the wake of the attack, Celia packs her things and vanishes into the night without the closure Henry needed.