Knightfall

Knightfall commits the cardinal sin for action movies: tedium. All of its venial sins, of which there are many, could be forgiven if the film were anything other than really boring.

The plot, as much of it as there is, is standard McGuffin-driven. The object that I can't say the plot revolves around (it's far too linear) is a nonsensical bio-weapon key combination. As a scientific adviser, Ros Knight (Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott) is brought in on the MI5 raid to retrieve it. It goes wrong, the bad guys get the weapon and Ros gets the key. Ros, knowing that the bad guys are after her, goes to a safe-house, where she is attacked, and then to her estranged super-spy father Charles Knight (Ian Ogilvy). They fight off the tactical team sent to get the key. Some people in MI5, including Ros's boyfriend Hugh (Geoffrey Moore, Roger Moore's son), are of course traitors. That's not a spoiler, we know it from the start.

Knightfall doesn't deliver on action. It is hard to pick on any one aspect that causes this. The incessant hard cutting that plagues the film won't let the eye settle on anything for more than a few seconds. It makes mincemeat of the narrative that needs to be encapsulated within a fight scene. The camera can't hide the fact that the stunt work in the physical fight scenes isn't being done for real. None of the lead actors seams to have the physicality to engage in those fights. That's strange because Sothcott has done karate. The firefights are off the shelf post gun-fu.

The clichéd dialogue isn't made up for by the almost universal bad acting. There are continuity errors. Soldier in the tactical team, didn't you just have a backpack? And the lighting is all over the place. What time of day is it again? Then there is the lighting of night scenes. Harsh cold white lights blaze at eye level, often through mist or smoke, often straight at the camera. This lighting would never really exist at a dock, or other industrial site for that matter. In a rural setting, around Charles Knight's house, it is unbelievable.

As a film, Knightfall never has the pace, or anything else, for you to suspend disbelief.

Reviewed on: 14 Nov 2026