Chief of Station review – perma-scowled Aaron Eckhart bids

Ham-fisted thriller about a CIA operative flung into a world of pain when he finds out his late wife may have been a Russian agent lacks any subtlety or intrigue

Judging by his recent filmography, Aaron Eckhart is making a play for the Liam Neeson “geri-action” market. This latest thriller, directed by straight-to-streaming action kingpin Jesse V Johnson, is pitched close to Charles Bronson territory, with the perma-scowled Eckster speaking in a menacing lean-in whisper, and at one point telegraphing his status as a grief-stricken widow/ticking timebomb by slumping against the cold-cuts fridge in the supermarket.

Eckhart plays CIA operative and outgoing Budapest bureau head Benjamin Malloy, whose Algerian wife Farrah (Laëtitia Eido) is about to take over from him before she is killed in a restaurant bombing on their anniversary. Catapulted into a world of pain, he’s nudged closer to the edge when internal affairs later identify Farrah as a possible Russian double agent. Due to meet up with his son (Chris Petrovski) in Croatia, he opts for a stop-off in his old Hungarian stomping ground to nose around what exactly his other half was up to, starting with whether she was actually in cahoots with his FSB opposite number Evgeny (Nick Moran).