In exploring the issues that were and are involved, the film goes far deeper, as it were, than the seagoing Cold War caper thriller it naturally wants to be.
As we’re reminded in the background here, the ’60s and ’70s were not exactly glorious years for covert operations by operatives of the U.S. government. This plot, though, was about as morally defensible as they come.
That Neither Confirm Nor Deny doesn’t ignore the wider controversies of the CIA is welcome . . . But at heart, this is a heist saga designed to enthrall in its ingenuity and ambition, one of the more presentable cases of cowboy spycraft from an us-versus-them time.