Keeping track of the terminology in Netflix’s spy thriller Heart of Stone is the first challenge. There’s a hush-hush peacekeeping organisation called “the Charter” whose job is to save as many human lives, anywhere, as they can. The main piece of tech at their service is an AI supercomputer called “the Heart”, which is essentially like a cricket-score predictor applied to all given situations in real time, showing all the forking pathways and chances of success.
Wasn’t this thing’s cousin the baddie in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, another offering from explosion-fond Skydance Media? Never mind that: concentrate. Everyone consulting said gizmo has a playing card for a call sign – so the Q figure manning it (Oppenheimer’s solid Matthias Schweighöfer) is the Jack of Hearts, and so on. But the M in charge is both the King of Hearts and also called Nomad (a brisk Sophie Okonedo), which could easily catch you out. Plus, we meet a rival unit called the Clubs – what are they using? A cudgel with USB sockets? Maybe the putative sequels will explain.
Gal Gadot is certainly low on answers as the Nine of Hearts – real name Stone, Rachel Stone, hence the head-slappingly clumsy title – who begins the film mysteriously posing (why?) as a low-ranking agent for a much less clued-in operation. These guys (Jamie Dornan, Jing Lusi, Paul Ready) are more of a Slow Horses-style unit mucking along, until they become aware that a brilliant young hacker (diminutive Bollywood star Alia Bhatt) is playing with them. She’s after Stone, and the Heart, and has unexpected allies.
The film doesn’t do a great job of hiding its main villain, or extending them much tangible personality, let alone depth, for that actor to work with. Only one guest appearance, from a many-time Oscar nominee, counts as a genuine surprise – and the sight of her on grainy CCTV in a plummeting lift is amusingly effective.
The film’s passable chase sequences – and firepower – are a long way off the pummelling showmanship of the Extraction franchise. Journeyman British director Tom Harper has still yet to improve on his country-music drama Wild Rose. He dusts off his Aeronauts skillset for the action highlight, a Bond-alike scene of dizzy aerial peril, with two skydiving cast members and just the one parachute.
