'The Courier' delivers Benedict Cumberbatch in a taut Cold War thriller

Anyone with a taste for Cold War dramas will find an intriguing addition to their cinematic library with "The Courier," a fact-based story featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as a Hitchcockian everyman who becomes the unlikely conduit to a Soviet leaker of secrets in 1960. It's the kind of historical tale that, after the closing crawl, will likely send more than a few viewers running to Google to read more.

British and American espionage officials were understandably eager to gather information from Oleg Penkovsky (Georgian-born Merab Ninidze, also terrific), a high-ranking Soviet official who has grown increasingly alarmed by leader Nikita Khrushchev's willingness to seek confrontation with the West. But they need a way to gain access to what Penkovsky knows, using someone "who the KGB won't suspect" in order to collect his secrets. They wind up approaching Cumberbatch's Greville Wynne, a rather staid family man who periodically travels to Moscow on business. "I'm just a salesman," Wynne protests, and he appears to be genuinely concerned and apprehensive, before finally agreeing.