Having been shot well before the current U.S.-Iran conflict commenced lends “The Fix” a somewhat anachronistic air, albeit one that sits comfortably enough between its other fuzzy points of political messaging. This U.S. production from Israeli writer-director Guy Moshe sets a group of former CIA Special Ops agents, led by Zachary Levi, on a dangerous undercover mission in Tehran. With dissident activists, hidden pre-Islamic Republic wealth, much gunplay and multiple double-crosses all involved, this polished, somewhat ungainly thriller emerges an entertaining yet less-than-fully satisfying mix of macho action heroics and convoluted espionage intrigue. In the long run it falls short of its own tangled ambitions. But Moshe and co. do make these nearly two-and-a-half hours pass in diverting if not terrifically suspenseful fashion.
A half-hour first act takes place during the 2021 evacuation of Kabul, as Tucker (Levi) and his men are tasked by handler Larry (Liam Neeson) with rescuing a key local ally before he’s captured by the Taliban. Tucker is forced to make emergency decisions that go against direct orders, which saves lives but gets his entire squad summarily dismissed from the Agency afterward.
This action-packed prelude leaves them back in the U.S., where some time later the half-dozen men are all re-adjusting poorly to civilian life — including Tucker, who avoids much contact with his ex-wife and son because he considers himself damaged goods. None are quite sure what to do with themselves. But reason to reassemble the team arises when Larry, whose prior migraines have somehow escalated into full-blown early-onset dementia, begins babbling out top-secret intel. That includes the news that he and another operative had somehow hidden millions in Tehran during the 1979 fall of the Shah’s regime.
Posing as a journalist, Tucker goes to interview the older man’s former paramour in Paris. She’s willing to point him towards that long-buried fortune — if he rescues her daughter Maryam (Lara Wolf), currently hiding in Iran from authorities for activism against the oppressive regime. Tucker reassembles what’s left of his crew for that purpose, each of them adopting a false front to infiltrate a hostile nation. He himself poses as a New Zealander seeking to export rugs, accompanied by his newlywed wife. That role gets played by Zara (Elnaaz Norouzi), a Farsi-fluent university student he drafted in the U.S., without telling her the real purpose of their trip.
Due to her reckless behavior, among other factors, this mission too eventually goes south. Eventually Tucker and mates must kidnap a high official (Navid Negahban) to gain access to the building, now a military facility, where the moolah allegedly lay out of sight for decades. But the Yanks (whose ranks also feature Quincy Isaiah as a late replacement for a previously fallen comrade) face duplicity at every turn, with seemingly half the cast turning out to be two-faced in what becomes an excessive pileup of such plot revelations.
Despite adequate performances, the character writing here isn’t complex enough to make so many contrived twists credible, or lend “The Fix’s” whole the intricacy of a first-rate espionage tale. Nor does Moshe appear a natural action director, as the setpieces here are just competently staged rather than harrowing, and overall tension goes slack on occasion. Nonetheless, the film is best when most physical, peaking around the two-thirds mark before losing some momentum again. Larry Smith’s widescreen cinematography is a significant plus, making the most of locations — even if Georgia (the country, not the state) must substitute for Iran, and the Mississippi-shot Stateside scenes feature homes that seem a bit more upscale than the onscreen personnel could likely afford. Some iffy digital FX are the only major minuses in an otherwise decent technical and design assembly.
Starting with an onscreen Biblical quote, the screenplay often feels on the brink of conservative jingoism that never quite becomes explicit. Still, indictments of the Iranian theocracy lean towards stereotype, and criticisms of U.S. policy only name-check Democrat POTUSes (Carter, Biden) when pointing an accusatory finger. There’s some hackneyed dialogue, much of it borne by Neeson, who despite his prominence in advertising gets sidelined for most of the running time.
But “The Fix” goes down easily enough, even as it fails to find the epic narrative scope or cogent takeaway it vaguely reaches for. (The actual fadeout underlines that muddled air by conflating the heartwarming and the hawkish: It sees a young boy, reunited with his father, asking the latter if he can “teach me how to shoot.”) Moshe’s unpredictable path to date suggests he still hasn’t found his metier: Twenty years ago he debuted with “Holly,” a powerfully low-key expat drama set in Cambodia, then veered into stylish but hollow stabs at comic-book action (“Bunraku”) and thinky sci-fi (“LX 2048”). If this latest misses the bullseye, it’s at least again a watchable departure.
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