'Turks & Caicos' - Movie Review

Bill Nighy returns as Johnny Worricker, an old-school spook, formerly of MI5 but now hiding out in the Turks and Caicos Islands after the events of the previous movie. Worricker first appeared in 2011's "Page Eight," which I thought was brilliant and under-appreciated: the appearance of two sequels (this is the first, "Salting the Battlefield" is the second - although don't read that review if you intend to watch this one) makes me think I may have been wrong about the "under-appreciated" part. And there are advantages to being under-appreciated: nobody comes along and makes lower quality sequels so the original remains a single near-perfect jewel.

Johnny Worricker is living a life of leisure on the Turks and Caicos, spending his days on the beach reading and occasionally looking after a friend's son. But as soon as this life of comfort is shown, it's disrupted by the appearance of Christopher Walken's character: Worricker is dragged into the bad blood and bad money that surrounds "Curtis Pelissier" (Walken's character's name, which Worricker clearly doesn't believe). In turn, Worricker pulls in Rollo (Ewen Bremner) and Margot (Helena Bonham Carter, playing Worricker's ex-) in London.

Like the first movie, this one is remarkably low key: no explosions or violence, although someone does die off screen, and there's a lot of threat. Just smart people talking, something I generally enjoy. But I felt the writing (once again by the director David Hare) left too much unclear and made a number of unsupported leaps of logic. I enjoyed watching Nighy play Worricker again, but it also kind of sullied the memory of the original.