3307. Turks & Caicos (2014)

Starring: Bill Nighy, Christopher Walken, Winona Ryder

Director: David Hare

Running Time: 95 mins

Turks & Caicos is a British film and the sequel to Page Eight. Now retired and living in the Caribbean, Johnny Worricker encounters trouble in paradise as his past begins to catch up with him.

As uniquely and boldly patient and mellow as it was, I found Page Eight a really rather tiresome watch, meaning that I wasn’t all too excited about the prospect of another hour and a half of slow-moving espionage intrigue following the exploits of Johnny Worricker.

And unfortunately, while the movie manages to pack in a whole new bunch of Hollywood A-listers, Turks & Caicos is an even more exhausting watch than its predecessor, with a languishing story that never provides anything in the way of genuine tension, and gets woefully distracted from what could be a gripping central espionage story.

As is the case with the previous movie, it’s important to remember that this movie isn’t made to be a fast-paced action thriller. There are a couple of bursts of what you might call ‘action’, but it’s very much a dialogue-focused film, more akin to a stage play than a spy blockbuster.

If that’s your cup of tea, then you’ll certainly like Turks & Caicos more than me. However, it does have some clear weaknesses in comparison to Page Eight, namely given how removed it is from the ‘action’ compared with the previous film.

While the first film was equally as slow and mellow, the proceedings were at least right at the centre of British intelligence, whereas in Turks & Caicos, as the name suggests, Johnny Worricker finds himself on a Caribbean island far away from the action in London.

The film’s attempts to interweave the events in the Caribbean with those in London fall flat largely because of how much time we spend with Worricker and a collection of fairly uninteresting side characters on Turks & Caicos.

Despite the appearance of A-listers in the form of Christopher Walken and Winona Ryder, there’s far less intrigue and urgency to Worricker’s actions in the Caribbean, with a convoluted story that seems to give too much attention to side characters over the main character.

Again, if you fancy a slower, more patient spy drama, then Turks & Caicos will certainly fit the bill, but the movie is still a frustratingly tiresome watch, lacking the tension, stakes and urgency even of its predecessor, making it a rather dull watch throughout. So, that’s why I’m giving it a 6.6.