The Terminal Spy
Genre: Crime/Drama/Historical
Director: Paul Greengrass
Writer: Eden Townsend
Based on the book by Alan Cowell
Producer: Rachel Hallett Hardcastle
Cast: Barry Keoghan, Kaya Scodelario, Evan Peters, Danny DeVito, Peter Dinklage, Ralph Fiennes, Bruce Campbell, Dani Pudi
Plot: In voiceover, Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko (Barry Keoghan) explains that someone intentionally poisoned his tea with twice the radioactive dose endured by people standing at the Chernobyl meltdown center. A spectrograph view of what happens dramatizes this poisoning. A short time later, flash to London, as Sasha struggles in a cab on the way to the hospital. His wife, Marina (Kaya Scodelario), attempts to comfort him. In the emergency room, Marina declares Sasha has been poisoned. Per the laws, they send a police inspector, Brent Hyatt (Evan Peters), to file a report on Sasha's poisoning case. Doctors insist Sasha is suffering from food poisoning, but Sasha knows better. Hyatt asks who poisoned him, and Sasha tells him it was the KGB. Hyatt tells him, "all that" ended 20 years ago. Sasha disagrees and begins to narrate his story…
In 1984, in Siberia. Sasha climbs to a rooftop, attempting an assassination, but in the Arctic weather, the gun's metal sticks to his hand, and his struggles to get free give away his position. Fortunately, it turns out to be an exercise by the KGB. As Sasha explains in voiceover, every young Russian dreamed of joining the KGB. Sasha would watch old movies dramatizing the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union's glories, enraptured even as an adult. In voiceover, Sasha explains the late-period USSR's lifestyle: those who had power would take whatever they wanted; those who didn't know better than a complaint. Money didn't matter, so an integral part of their KGB training was learning the American way of doing things that were likely foreign. Esoteric concepts like bank cheques and credit references baffled them. A mystery organization of powerful men, the "Men of Force," are virtually the Illuminati of the USSR. They'd make their own private subway in Moscow, their own department stores selling American merchandise, and they had the power simply walk into a lovely apartment and tell its tenants to leave.
After his training, Sasha is disappointed not to be assigned to the First Directorate, the elite group sent to the U.S. to spy. Sasha's training colonel explains that he's actually too smart for his own good, and he'd end up getting undesired attention. As a result, he's assigned to the Third Directorate, which does counterintelligence within the Soviet Union. One night, while living it up at a KGB nightclub, Sasha sees his ex-training buddy Misha (Max Irons) has returned from America. He's drunk and talking up the American lifestyle, trying to convince his comrades of its superiority. Sasha and his new friends humor him until they pull over along the side of a highway and shoot him in the head. Sasha is sort of horrified at first, but he buys into the thinking that Misha had fallen prey to the enemy and deserved this.
A doctor tries to convince Sasha that all his tests show a case of mild food poisoning. Sasha pulls out their hair and asks if that's a symptom of mild food poisoning. The doctor condescendingly offers that it's a symptom of middle age. Unnerved, Marina calls a mystery man known only as Boris, looking for help. Frustrated, Sasha returns to his story. He bitterly explains in voiceover that one morning in 1993, they woke up to found they had no country. While the capitalist West perceived this as a victory, the Soviets found the loss of their empire tragic. Money became worthless, citizens starved, all prisoners—even those who should have been imprisoned—were released, and hundreds of organized crime syndicates sprouted up before long. Sasha remains with the KGB to clean up Russia. He and his friends wander Moscow to defend poor businesses who are forced to protect the various syndicates. One is a ballet studio, forced to pay protection to a corrupt police lieutenant. After talking with the lieutenant, Sasha realizes he must have the blessing of someone above him.
He accompanies his friends to a birthday party for one of the ballerinas—future wife Marina, who's annoyed and embarrassed by the presence of a KGB (now FSB) agent at her party. People start leaving in fear of the KGB. Sasha dances with Marina and quickly wins her over, despite his abrasive attitude. She complains about the day's problems, notably her inability to pass a driving test because the examiner expects a bribe that she refuses to give. Sasha accompanies Marina on her next driving test. He holds a gun to the examiner, who immediately agrees to give her a license. Perturbed, Sasha explains that he doesn't want him to give her one; he wants the examiner to do his job. Marina takes her test and gets her license legally.
In the present, Boris Berezovsky (Danny DeVito) arrives with bodyguards, a publicist, and a poison specialist. Sasha is grateful. Boris tells him he will never forget that Sasha saved his life. Back in 1995, Sasha saves Boris's life. After nearly dying in a car bomb, Boris decides he needs help. In voiceover, Sasha explains that Boris had quickly become an enemy of the old ways. A well-regarded mathematician, Boris embraced capitalism after the fall of the USSR and—after struggling his entire life during the reign of the communist empire—became one of the world's richest men in five short years. This displeased the Siloviki, who couldn't adjust to a world where money mattered more than political power. As a result, attempts in his life became relatively frequent. After the car bomb, Sasha arrives to help. Boris doesn't want to help, but Sasha offers that he'll need a cop eventually.
Not long after this, Boris is holed up in his nightclub's office while the Moscow police attempt to arrest him. Sasha intervenes, sending the cops away. Boris attempts to pay Sasha to return the favor, but Sasha refuses. Sasha introduces Boris to Marina (to whom he is now married) and their new baby. Boris explains why the capitalist model is failing in Russia and how Boris strives to make it work. He believes Russia needs great men like Boris himself and like Sasha—uncorrupted men to oversee the nation's security forces. Boris asks Sasha what they want. Sasha realizes Boris can make it happen: Boris owns enough media companies to force people to listen. After Boris leaves, Marina doesn't want Sasha to have anything to do with him, and Sasha tells him he can't quit, so the only thing to do is change things.
When the FSB finds out Sasha has befriended Boris, they order him to kill him. Paranoid, Sasha decides the only solution is for someone to speak out. He gathers a large group of ex-KGB agents he believes he can trust and explains what they need to do: go public with what they know about the corruption and atrocities committed against their countrymen. Sasha has already decided to do this, but he decides to join him up to his friends. Many of these people do join him at a national TV news agency owned by Boris. However, the bulk of them disguises themselves—all except Sasha, who bravely lays out the murdering, drug/weapons trafficking, extorting, torturing, and robbing state officials commit daily.
After the news report, Boris contacts Russian president Boris Yeltsin (Peter Dinklage) for a face-to-face meeting. Boris wants to encourage Yeltsin to allow Sasha to run the FSB. Yeltsin agrees they need an uncorrupted man to run things, but he's found his man—Vladimir Putin (Ralph Fiennes). Yeltsin does allow Sasha to meet with Putin. After an awkward initial meeting, Putin orders the tapping of Sasha's phone. Shortly after that, police burst into Sasha's apartment, arrest him, and force him to endure a kangaroo court in which a shopkeeper alleges Sasha extorted money from him. Sasha manages to get the witness to recant, which forces the judge to dismiss the case. That doesn't stop the authorities, though—immediately, still in the courtroom, they arrest Sasha again on a new charge of extorting a can of sweet peas. Sasha sarcastically confesses and demands that they execute him. He scoffs at them, fully aware that they need to keep him alive because he's too famous for vanishing. Sasha explains how brutal prison is for an FSB member—prisoners' family members were killed, raped, and tortured in voiceover.
After a few years, Sasha is released. He looks horrible—emaciated and sickly. Sasha explains that he used the prison to his advantage, first doing all he could to get killed in the general population and starve in solitary confinement. They had no choice but to release him because they couldn't let him die. Sasha gets his FSB friends to inform him and leads a straight-arrow life, knowing he's now untouchable. One night, Marina receives a phone call informing her that either Sasha or their child (Tolik) will be murdered. Marina seeks help with some of Sasha's ex-colleagues, but she's told that he's reckless and she'd be wise to take her child and keep her distance from him.
After witnessing an alleged terrorist attack in Moscow, Sasha explains to Marina what he's pieced together through various international newspapers—in short, the Russians executed these attacks to justify an invasion of Chechnya that would renew a spirit of patriotism in Russia. Marina doesn't care. She wants Sasha to play ball to save himself or Tolik, and Sasha refuses. Instead, he flees to Turkey and sends for her. Marina refuses to leave Russia. Boris comes to plead Sasha's case, winning Marina by pointing out that Sasha will come back for her if she doesn't go to Turkey, and he'll undoubtedly be killed.
When they're finally together, Sasha tries to get political asylum at the American embassy, and he's turned away. Finally, Sasha books a return flight to Moscow, insisting on a layover in London. While in London, Sasha seeks political asylum, and British law requires that he and his family get it. Meanwhile, Boris and several other capitalist oligarchs meet with Putin, who announces he's taking 50% of their resources. Because he claims everything they own belongs to the state, he feels 50% is a generous offer. Putin wants to know why Boris insists on weakening him with his media outlets reporting negative things about him. Putin quietly freezes all of Boris's assets to stop him.
Sasha writes a tell-all book in London laying out everything he witnessed and tying Russia to the alleged Chechen terrorist attacks. Marina pleads with him not to release the book—they're living a happy, anonymous life in England. If he publishes the book, the FSB will come after him relentlessly. Sasha tells her it's his job to put this book out. He has help from Boris and an underground syndicate, but they publish hundreds of copies to no avail. Still, Putin has them destroyed before anybody can read them. Left with no choice, Sasha is forced to find a real job. As a montage shows his efforts, Sasha explains in voiceover that the Soviet Union forced people to feel a sense of community by cramming them all together. Simultaneously, he can finally feel alone in the western world, and he doesn't like it.
In the present, Sasha is rushed into a quarantine area, where doctors wear radiation suits to protect them from his poison. Dr. Henry (Bruce Campbell), the man Boris brought, interviews Marina about Sasha's potential risk of exposing others. Marina doesn't believe anyone, but she comes into serious contact with him. Knowing Marina isn't long for the world, she visits Sasha in his private room. His hair has completely fallen out, and he's on a morphine drip. Sasha complains that nobody tells him anything, but he knows that it's not good news from her facial expression. Marina explains that he was poisoned with Polonium-210. Sasha knows the radioactive substance well—back in the Soviet era, they used to manufacture it in an off-books, unmapped town, where the KGB quickly discovered its mostly untraceable effects as a poison.
Hyatt arrives with other police, trying to figure out the jurisdiction. Ultimately, they decide to pursue it as a murder case—to Marina's consternation, considering her husband is not (yet) dead—and a secret service agent, Ackerley (Danny Pudi), comes up with a surprisingly plausible theory. The poisoning was far too evident and sloppy to be FSB. Since the amount of Polonium-210 ingested would have cost $10 million on the black market, they can think of only one person with the money, the connection to Sasha, and the personal grudge against Putin: Boris. Hyatt and the other cops troll the streets of London, looking for evidence. They find nothing, so Hyatt is sent back to learn the details of Sasha's last days.
Sasha leaves his apartment in the morning after a brief argument with Marina about where he's going—he has a new job, but she doesn't like it. Sasha stops at a sushi joint, where a friend informs him that he's on a KGB list of targets to kill. (As Sasha narrates the story, it's intercut with present-day police investigating crime scenes, talking with perps, making sure they aren't also poisoned, etc.) Sasha goes to Boris's London offices to wait for fax, which he's tasked to deliver at a hotel. Lugovoi (Bradley James) — ex-KGB and Boris's former security chief—sits among a group of wealthy Russians. Sasha hands off the dossier and shares a drink with Lugovoi—only Sasha doesn't drink alcohol, and he insists on green tea.
Back at home, Marina insists Lugovoi is still one of the Siloviki and is not trusted. Sasha is determined to get into Lugovoi's good graces—he has an opportunity to support his family, and he must take it. The following day is a duplicate of the opening scenes, minus the spectrograph: Lugovoi offers Sasha the poisoned tea, Sasha gladly takes it (although Lugovoi comments about its bitterness), and they say traditional Russian toasts. After Sasha leaves them, he starts to feel weak and knows instantly that they've poisoned him. He stumbles home and forces himself to vomit it up.
In the present, a Scotland Yard delegation goes to Russia to interrogate Lugovoi. His prosecutor, Barsukov (Colm Feore), noted that Barsukov is the man responsible for imprisoning Sasha earlier. Still, he didn't really merit a mention aside from the fact that he reappears here, explains to the police why Sasha's story makes no sense. Barsukov subtly implies that Sasha may have been a terrorist trying to kill Lugovoi and his men (as evidence, Barsukov points to a man named Dmitry Kovtun (Iwan Rheon), the only one they can find who has suffered at all from the Polonium-210). Still, Hyatt doesn't believe it—especially after positively testing Lugovoi's hotel and Kovtun's plane for the radioactive fingerprint of Polonium-210.
Sasha, delirious and suffering from dementia, has a moment of startling lucidity. He realizes exactly how the plan worked: Kovtun was sent to London with the poison in a lead vial. He was tasked with merely delivering the package somewhere. Still, curiosity got the better of him, he opened the vial and thus was exposed to a small amount of radiation. Sasha insists that both the plan's efficiency and the inability to factor in human nature are KGB tradecraft hallmarks. Hyatt brings his evidence to Barsukov, but they will not extradite Lugovoi, Kovtun, or anyone else. Hyatt gripes about this to Boris, who explains that Russians won't change. They're more afraid of their own people than the international community; they know someone will take them down, but they don't know who, so everyone must die.
Sasha dictates his last words to Marina and has a photo taken to show what they've done. Shortly after that, he dies. In Russia, Putin explains that there is no evidence of foul play in Sasha's death. Marina prepares to address a phalanx of reporters, and Hyatt cautiously tells her that she doesn't have to. Marina announces that the Soviet way of doing things was to rob everyone of joy, then imprison and/or kill those who were unhappy—but they can't take her unhappiness away. She will fight to keep it and won't rest until the world understands why she's unhappy. She goes out into the crowd.
