2.5/5 stars Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley proves the saving grace in Eran Riklis’ otherwise painfully pedestrian spy thriller Spider in the Web , as a veteran agent of the Israeli secret service Mossad reluctant to hang up his spurs. Italian actress Monica Bellucci also stars, but this is a far cry from the overblown antics of Spectre , her last foray into the spy genre. Riklis is more eager to emulate the cold war thrillers of author John le Carré, favouring whispered discussions in smoky pubs and drab offices over flamboyant action sequences. While Kingsley’s character Avram Adareth’s musings on a life spent dishing out violence on behalf of a seemingly ungrateful government are quietly compelling, the film offers precious little to get excited about. Avram is in Brussels, investigating a company he suspects of selling chemical weapons to Syria. His superiors are growing suspicious of his intel, and send fresh-faced agent Daniel (Itay Tiran) to bring him in once and for all. Daniel is also the son of Avram’s former partner, who asked him to look out for his boy before he died. Avram is able to negotiate a week’s grace to close his deal with Angela (Bellucci), an employee at the chemical company, but other interested – and violent – parties begin to circle. Playing on Daniel’s loyalties, Avram nurtures something of a mentor/mentee relationship with the young agent, and the film works best during these interactions. Kingsley is effortlessly charismatic extolling a lifetime’s experience on the lad, tinged with an all-too-believable world-weariness that grows increasingly sombre as more of his old contacts and collaborators turn up dead. One can’t help but recognise glimpses of Le Carré’s George Smiley, or even, at a push, Daniel Craig’s Bond, in Avram’s growing recognition that he is a relic of a bygone era and that this may very well prove to be his last rodeo. The film’s overcast European locations and road-trip structure also draw comparisons with the Bourne franchise. Such moments of melancholy and nostalgia only hold water, however, when counterbalanced with the tension and excitement the cloak-and-dagger genre demands. Riklis and screenwriters Gidon Maron and Emmanuel Naccache offer only fleeting moments of pulse-raising action as the film strolls unhurriedly towards its somewhat inevitable denouement. Despite Kingsley’s impressively trim physique and numerous montages of Daniel working out, Spider in the Web barely manages to break a sweat. Spider in the Web is streaming on Netflix. Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook