Action / Drama (Sculby)

Well-crafted but overly complex (and long) spy thriller with British Intelligence and the KGB playing a cat-and-mouse game to find the mole in each other’s apparatus. A basic course in spy jargon might have helped us comprehend John Hopkins’ convoluted script, adapted from John Trenhaile’s novel.

Here is what is written on the back of Codename Kyril video jacket:

The head of the KGB dispatches an agent, Codename Kyril (Ian Charleson – Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan), to flush out a high-ranking Kremlin traitor who has been leaking crucial secrets to the British.

Under the guise of a staged defection, rumors fly in Moscow and in London that Kyril carries the name of the spy’s identity. What Kyril doesn’t realize is that he is on a suicide mission, hunted by both the KGB and British Intelligence (M16).

Waiting in England is Royston (Edward Woodward- “The Equalizer”, Over My Dead Body), the London Station Chief of M16 whose mission is to find and stop Kyril.

The story becomes a web of plots and counter-plots, spies and double agents, climaxing in a surprising and action -packed finale.

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