2 August 2006. Warning: Spoilers. If only more money and more resources had been devoted to this television movie project, it could have been a great theatrical film release. With a compelling and tight script suggestive of the best spy films, particularly Three Days of Condor (1975) as well as The Bourne Identity both a movie (2002) and a novel (written by Robert Ludlum the same author as this movie) and similar in nature to The Constant Gardener (2005), The Hades Factor is particularly powerful with its opening sequences that rip through the screen like the television series 24. If 24 is ever made into a movie, The Hades Factor could easily be a roadmap for it.
The plot twists are good, the suspense intense. Even more than Three Days of Condor and as challenging as 24, this movie is hard to watch without getting upset as the plot is revealed. Somehow, though, the movie isn't able to reach the ultimate reaches of a classic. Most of the cinematography and the acting is nicely raw and real...except at times there is an ebb or flow to its consistency. The lead male role is also somewhat irritating and frustrating by what the audience might hope the character could do but doesn't, unlike The Bourne Identity. In this movie, we have an either an actual flawed character or just a dense one. The lead female role is strong and exciting. People do die in this movie and it seems unsympathetic who, yet especially in the first half there is a good sense of silent, emotional depth in the humanity of the characters.
The plot twists are good, the suspense intense. Even more than Three Days of Condor and as challenging as 24, this movie is hard to watch without getting upset as the plot is revealed. Somehow, though, the movie isn't able to reach the ultimate reaches of a classic. Most of the cinematography and the acting is nicely raw and real...except at times there is an ebb or flow to its consistency. The lead male role is also somewhat irritating and frustrating by what the audience might hope the character could do but doesn't, unlike The Bourne Identity. In this movie, we have an either an actual flawed character or just a dense one. The lead female role is strong and exciting. People do die in this movie and it seems unsympathetic who, yet especially in the first half there is a good sense of silent, emotional depth in the humanity of the characters.