Rogue Agent Parent Guide

Robert Freegard (James Norton) is a busy man. When he’s not tending bar down at the local pub, he’s recruiting university students as amateur informants for British Secret Services. Of course, when their lives are threatened by the IRA because of their work, he’s quick to get them into safehouses and change his identity.

Now working out of a car dealership, Robert runs into hotshot corporate attorney Alice Archer (Gemma Arterton). Once she begins to question his story, Robert doubles down…before disappearing with most of her money. Furious, humiliated, and bent on revenge, Alice turns to the police to track down the man who swindled her. But Robert is a ghost, with hardly any information in the system. To find him, they start digging through his clandestine past – only to find that Robert’s past might have far less to do with gathering intelligence and far more to do with running scam after scam, leaving unnumbered victims in his wake.

Based on the insane true story of Robert Hendy-Freegard, Rogue Agent takes a captivatingly bizarre and exciting story and turns it into two hours of unrewarding drudgery. Solid casting in James Norton and Gemma Arterton aside, the film has precious little to offer viewers. Despite the unreal exploits of the real-world Freegard, the film constantly feels like it has run out of things to talk about, and leaves most of the action in the audience’s imagination. I don’t quite know how the filmmakers managed to suck so much of the interest out of such an inherently intriguing story, but they’ve succeeded to devastating effect. I spent half the film doodling dinosaurs in my notebook – a sure sign of an absolutely brutal snooze-fest in progress.

Family audiences are unlikely to appreciate the film’s stupefying storytelling, and they’re even less likely to enjoy its content issues. Although the story avoids any serious violence, there’s a large dose of profanity throughout the runtime, and two scenes of a sexual nature. Given that the title character spends at least part of the film as a bartender, it should also be no surprise that there’s a good deal of drinking on screen, social and otherwise.

Frankly, Rogue Agent isn’t worth the time it takes. The film has no idea where it wants to go with its own story, and rather than pick a direction and stick with it, it wanders in sad little circles like a three legged rabbit. Do yourself a favor and just take a nap instead: That’s how you’re going to end up anyway, and if you don’t buy a theater ticket, you can do it for free.