Harry Pearce is the chief of anti-terrorism in MI5 who leads a convoy to arrest the terrorist Adam Qasim via London. When the convoy is attacked, things turn into a bad path while Qasim escapes and a CIA member is killed. Someday, Will Holloway is going through his first experience with the malicious MI5 intelligence chief Harry Pearce to track him down before a powerful terrorist attack that could turn things around.
"MI-5" is no action b-movie classic, but it manages to weave a complex and compelling narrative knot, mix in some absorbing musings about the nature of doing right and following orders, and pack in some nail-biting shoot outs.
There's a lot to commend in Spooks: The Greater Good, but at the end of the day it offers nothing new to the genre and it's big-screen adaptation just needed to be more daring and step out of the confines of television.
"Undone by sentimentality," grumbles a senior secret agent in "Spooks: The Greater Good," having been foiled when a long-favored rendezvous location proves a trap. He might as well be talking about the film itself.
Even if the film can't match Hollywood for spectacle, there's a sobering sense of the painful sacrifices facing those who toil to keep us safe from harm.