A British-American production, it stars Pierce Brosnan, Luke Bracey and Olga Kurylenko, with Bill Smitrovich and Will Patton also appearing, with the screenplay written by Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek.
In 2008, CIA agent Peter Devereaux supervises a young operative, David Mason, during a protective mission in Montenegro.
His former boss, John Hanley, arrives and convinces him to extract Natalia Ulanova, the aide of Russian President-elect and former Army General Arkady Fedorov.
It is revealed that during the war as a teenager, Filipova's family was murdered in front of her by Fedorov, who then held her captive as a sex slave for two years.
She surprises Fedorov but is unable to kill him as he attacks her; Devereaux ascends the stairs in the Hotel, shoots the bodyguards, and saves her.
However, when Mason and Celia, his CIA partner, arrive in Langley to present the evidence, they realize that Weinstein has been replaced by Hanley.
When Pierce Brosnan retired from playing the role of James Bond in 2005, it was reported that along with his then-business partner, Beau St. Clair, through their Irish DreamTime production company, he would be producing a down-to-earth spy thriller based on Bill Granger's book series, called The November Man, focusing on one particular novel in the series titled There Are No Spies, with shooting scheduled to begin in 2006.
[4] The project, however, was shelved sometime in 2007 for unknown reasons, while Brosnan held on to the screen rights to the novel with the plan to produce an adaptation in the future.
[5] In April 2013, whilst promoting his then-latest romantic comedy, Love Is All You Need, Brosnan told the media: "I am about to go off to Serbia and do my own spy movie.
Finally I have the director I want in Roger Donaldson and we’re gonna do a piece called November Man so I shall jump back into that arena".
[6] Brosnan revealed that Olga Kurylenko, who had a leading role in Quantum of Solace and the recent Oblivion, would co-star alongside him, commenting "I think there’s another room on the stage for another spy!
[7] Dominic Cooper, however, left the project to star in Need For Speed, and was replaced with Bracey in the role of the main character's protege.
[8] Principal photography began on May 20, 2013 in Belgrade, with Brosnan, Bracey, and many other supporting actors seen on site, but nothing particularly came out of the regular photographers and journalists, because it was moved away from public eye, and the sets were closed down for filming, guarded by tight security against all unauthorized personnel.
[14] "I wanted to create a taut score incorporating a guitar theme with a slightly Eastern European meets Western motif befitting an action thriller about international espionage," said Beltrami.
The site's critical consensus reads, "The November Man has a few of the ingredients necessary for a better-than-average spy thriller, making it all the more disappointing that it falls back on dull genre clichés.
[25] Bilge Ebiri of Vulture wrote, "Brosnan, who was a better James Bond than he often gets credit for, doesn’t like to smile much, but he still brings a weary likability to a grim part, just enough to keep us invested as the movie trots through its gauntlet of familiar twists and double-crosses.
[27] On August 20, 2014, while on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Brosnan said that a sequel was in preparation, and Relativity Media would soon be entering pre-production.