The Assets – a miniseries in eight parts – is a political thriller and a historical drama which premiered on US television (ABC) in 2014.
The topic of this drama is the hunt for a KGB mole inside the CIA: Aldrich Ames.
Here is some basic information about this drama:
** Directors: Trygve Allister Diesen, Peter Medak, Jeff T. Thomas, Rudy Bednar, and Adam Feinstein
** Writers: Alex Berger, Sarah Boyd, Andrew Chapman, Karen Stillman, and Bruce Terris
** Inspired by the book Circle of Treason by Sandy Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille (2012)
** Run time: 8 x ca. 41 minutes = ca. 330 minutes
The cast includes the following:
The first group
** Jodie Whittaker as Sandra “Sandy” Grimes (born 1945) – CIA
** Julian Ovenden as Gary Grimes – Sandy’s husband
** Amelia Clarkson as Kelly Grimes – Sandy and Gary’s teenage daughter
The second group
** Paul Rhys as Aldrich “Rick” Ames (born 1941) – CIA
** Catalina Denis as Maria del Rosario Ames (born 1952) – wife of Aldrich Ames
The third group
** Harriet Walter as Jeanne Vertefeuille (1932-2012) – CIA
** Jonjo O’Neill as Edward Lee Howard (1951-2002) – a former CIA agent
** John Lynch as Vitaly Yurchenko (born 1936) – a KGB defector who later returns to the USSR
** Peter Guinness as Dmitry Polyakov (1921-1988) – a KGB agent who spies for the CIA
While this thriller is inspired by real events, it is not a documentary film. It is a dramatized version of events. Not everything happened exactly as shown here.
Some details may have added, altered or excluded for practical purposes or dramatic reasons. But the basic story is true.
Since this drama is inspired by real events, the basic facts are part of the public record. They are not a secret. This is why I feel free to mention some of them here.
Besides, I need to mention a few details in order to explain and justify my rating.
This drama follows a chronological line which begins in 1985 and ends in 1994. Occasionally, there is a flashback to show us something that happened in the past.
** 1985 is the year in which top leaders of the CIA are forced to admit that the situation is serious: there is a KBG mole inside the CIA!
It takes a long time to identify the mole and once he is identified, it takes a long time to prepare for an arrest. They have to be sure that they have a solid case against him.
** 1994 is the year in which the KGB mole Aldrich Ames and his wife Maria del Rosario are arrested and charged with treason.
How did the CIA find out that Ames was the KGB mole? And how did they build a case against him? It was a long process which can be divided into two stages:
Stage one: CIA assets in the USSR and other states in the eastern bloc are being executed one by one. How can this happen?
The KGB must have an inside source! The source must be a high-ranking officer, because the information that is leaked is important and highly sensitive!
Stage two: once they know there is a mole, a process of elimination can begin. The KGB tries to distract the hunt for the mole.
While the distraction works for a while, it cannot stop the investigation. In the end, there is only one suspect to consider: Ames. He is the one!
As stated above, this drama was shown on US television (ABC) in 2014. But the way in which it was shown was rather unusual:
** Episodes 1 and 2 were shown in January 2014, but because the response from viewers was negative, it was cancelled.
** Episodes 3 and 4 were shown in June 2014, but because the response of viewers was still negative, it was cancelled again.
** The remaining four episodes were shown in July and August 2014. All eight episodes became available on Netflix in September 2014.
What do reviewers say about this product?
Here are the results of three review aggregators:
56 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes
58 per cent = Meta
74 per cent = IMDb
On Amazon there are at the moment more than 200 ratings of this product, more than 100 with reviews.
The average rating is 4.7 stars which corresponds to a rating of 94 percent.
As you can see, the ratings are mixed. They range from average to high; from 58 to 94 percent.
The topic is important and interesting. This could and should have been a great historical drama. A great political thriller. Unfortunately, it is not.
Why not?
What is wrong?
Here is the answer: there are several flaws.
Let me explain:
# 1. Location. Most scenes are set in Washington, DC, and in Moscow. But where are they actually filmed? In Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania!
# 2. Casting. Most characters are Americans and Russians. But where are the actors from? Not the US and not Russia! Most American roles are played by English actors!
The actor who plays Aldrich Ames is from Wales! The actor who plays Edward Lee Howard is from Northern Ireland!
Are Russian roles played by Russian actors? No! The actor who plays Vitaly Yurchenko is Irish! The actor who plays Dmitri Polyakov is English!
As far as I can tell, there is only one case where the casting director has chosen the proper nationality: Catalina Denis, who plays Maria del Rosario, is from Colombia.
What is the reason for this kind of casting? Are American actors not available? Perhaps they are too expensive?
Are Russian actors not available? Perhaps they are regarded as difficult to work with?
# 3. The language: American characters speak English, while Russian characters speak Russian. Russian conversations come with English subtitles.
At first, it seems the people behind this drama have made a real effort to make it realistic (with regard to the language that is spoken). But this first impression does not last long:
If you listen carefully to the Russian conversations, you can hear that something is wrong: it does not sound right.
The actors speak slowly. It is not convincing. Clearly, they are not from Russia. They are actors from somewhere else who have learned to say a few lines in Russian. This is not all. It gets worse:
Whenever a scene runs for more than 20-30 seconds, the actors will switch to English! Two Russians talking to each other in English! This is hardly realistic! What is the reason for this absurd situation? Here is the answer:
American viewers are not used to subtitles. Many Americans hate subtitles. Because American directors know this, they do not want to make a product with subtitles.
They are afraid the viewers will get angry and walk away. This is why Russian characters in American dramas speak English!
# 4. Unrealistic details. Here are three examples:
Example one: Ames walks into the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC, and offers to work for the KGB. This cannot happen, because the CIA or the FBI are watching the main entrance. Anyone who enters by the front door is a potential spy.
Example two: Ames enters the CIA archive. He is all alone. He takes what he wants. Several large folders are placed in a bag. He leaves the archive with the folders. There is no check. No search. At the end of the day, he leaves the CIA building holding the bag in his hand. He does not even try to hide it. Again, there is no check. No search. Impossible!
Example three: Ames meets his KGB handler and gives him the original documents he just removed from the archive. He should of course give him a copy of the files.
If another agent enters the archive looking for one of the folders Ames took, he or she will realize that it is missing. And this is a clear sign that something is wrong. A clever spy will never make a mistake like this.
# 5. The acting. Some scenes
remind me of an amateur play in high school: the scenes where we meet the
Grimes family at home. Two examples:
(A) Sandy’s husband Gary is totally understanding when Sandy has to work long hours and when she cannot talk to him about her work. He says this is fine, because it is her job to save the family and the US and the whole world from the bad guys.
(B) One evening, Sandy is upset and she has no time to listen to her teenage daughter. She cuts her off with an angry remark. But she regrets it at once. Because she is good mother. And the next morning she makes a big breakfast for the whole family. Harmony is restored! A happy American family!
# 6. The investigation. Why does it take so long to identify the mole? And once he is identified, why does it take so long to build a case against him?
While Ames is handing secret documents to the KGB, CIA assets in the USSR and other countries in the eastern bloc are being executed one by one.
In this drama, nobody asks: why is the investigation taking so long and why is it so slow? Ames is the bad guy. We know that from the beginning.
When he is finally arrested, at the end of the drama, the top leaders of the CIA congratulate themselves. But is this act of self-congratulation really justified?
How could the top leaders of the CIA keep on trusting him so long? How could they allow him to get away with so many crimes for so many years?
In this drama, Ames is blamed for his crimes. Of course, he is. But what about his colleagues? What about the people who worked with him for years without ever suspecting him?
CIA officials are trained to be suspicious! Perhaps they should ask themselves why they never noticed what was going on around them. But this does not happen. There is self-congratulation but no self-criticism in this drama.
Conclusion
This drama is uneven. While some parts are good, other parts are not so good. There are some flaws which cannot be ignored. This drama is not great; it is not even good; it is average. This is why it deserves a rating of three stars (60 percent).
PS # 1. Follow the money!
Ames had an annual salary of 60-70,000 US dollars, which corresponds to a monthly salary of 5-6,000 US dollars. Compare this amount with the lavish lifestyle he and his wife had:
(1) They bought a house for 540,000 dollars and they paid in cash!
(2) He had a car (a Jaguar) that cost ca. 50,000 dollars.
(3) His wife called her family in Colombia so often that the monthly phone bill was ca 2,000 dollars.
Just a casual look at these figures, should tell you that something is off here. Ames invented a cover story to explain his lavish lifestyle: he claimed his wife’s family in Colombia was rich. But this was not true at all.
If the CIA had checked his cover story, they would have discovered that it was a lie. But nobody bothered to look into this aspect until very late in the investigation.
Why?
Why was the economic aspect of the case ignored for so long? Why were his personal finances not one of the first things to be investigated?
PS # 2. Normally, the identity of a CIA agent is top secret. The name of a CIA agent must not be known to the public. But when Ames was arrested and convicted, the agency made an exception:
Grimes and Vertefeuille were given permission to write and publish a book about the case. Apparently, the agency wanted to show the public just how great the agency is: the bad guy was found and stopped!
PS # 3. The case of Aldrich Ames and the CIA can be compared to the case of Robert Hanssen and the FBI. Hanssen, who spied for the USSR and later for Russia for many years - just as Ames did - was arrested and charged with treason in 2001.
The story of Robert Hanssen and his final days at the FBI is covered in the historical drama Breach which premiered in 2007.
PS # 4. The story of Aldrich Ames and his time at the CIA is dramatized in the historical drama Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within which premiered in 1998.
PS # 5. Aldrich Ames was found guilty in a court of law. He is currently serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in a federal prison.
His wife Maria del Rosario Ames was also found guilty. She was sentenced to five years in prison but did not have to serve the full sentence. When she was released from prison, she returned to her native Colombia.
*****
The CIA officer who spied for
the Soviet Union and Russia
Aldrich Ames
(born 1941)
*****
Circle of Treason:
A CIA Account of
Traitor Aldrich Ames
and the Men He Betrayed
By Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille
(2012)
*****
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