John Cusack plays that familiar movie type the burnt-out secret agent in old-school spy thriller The Numbers Station. He’s started having moral qualms about killing, which gets him assigned to a routine job at a secret CIA base housed in a former military bunker somewhere in rural England. He’s there to protect Katherine (Malin Akerman), a young woman broadcasting encrypted CIA codes from the station via short-wave radio, but when the bunker comes under attack he’s expected to kill her to protect the agency’s secrets. We’ve seen spies with torn loyalties many times before, of course, but the film’s setting in a numbers station (they actually exist) is more original and the claustrophobic location gives the film a clammy suspense, though it’s so dimly lit that it’s sometimes hard to work out who is shooting at whom.

Released digitally by Content Media on several platforms including Blinkbox and iTunes and available on demand from Sky Box Office and Virgin Movies from Monday 27th May.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFZS3spi0Xw&fs=1

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.