Stratton (15, 94 mins)
Director: Simon West
Stars: Dominic Cooper, Connie Nielsen, Gemma Chan
It first caught my attention when Superman actor Henry Cavill pulled out just five days before the start of shooting over “creative differences”. This was a promising sign
Even better was the news it was going to be directed by Simon West, the man who brought Van Damme into The Expendables and slapped a mullet on Nicolas Cage for Con-Air.
Then it was announced that Dominic Cooper had stepped into the breach. Cooper put in the worst performance in my favourite bad action movie of the decade – the perfectly awful Need For Speed.
The prospect of seeing him play a grizzled, special forces hard-nut in a troubled Simon West spy thriller was almost too much to bear.
Sadly, Stratton isn’t bad it’s just a bit dull.
West crafts two passable but forgettable action scenes and serves up a very familiar plot involving a Russian terrorist and an MI6 mole.
As Cooper is disappointingly competent, the only highlight is Connie Nielsen’s plummy English general.
The Dane may have gone for a Helen Mirren effect but she ended up with a half-cut Loyd Grossman.
In the words of the late John Hurt, film and theatre are “two different sports” – a distinction that is often lost on stage directors making their first feature film.