What a terrific actor James Norton is. I first came across him in the first series of Happy Valley, in which he was superb as a villain, and I've followed his career since then with interest as well as admiration. When I saw that he had the lead role in Rogue Agent, a Netflix film inspired by a true story of crime, I was keen to watch it, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.
Norton plays Robert Freegard, a seemingly likeable and definitely plausible individual. When we first meet him, he's posing as an MI5 agent and conning three naive young people into abandoning their old lives. Years later, he's selling posh cars and when an attractive lawyer, Alice (Gemma Arterton) passes by, he chats her up. Before long, they are living together.
Alice checks into Robert's background and learns from a private detective that the man she has fallen for seems not to exist. When she confronts Robert, he tells her that he works for MI5, and she believes him. He also persuades her to start up a business venture with him. When he drains the account, she doesn't seem to realise the legal implications of a joint account until a policeman explains them to her, which I thought was rather odd for a supposedly hot-shot lawyer. The scenes in her office I didn't find convincing, but overall, the script is strong and the story really interesting, in this particular case all the more so because of its real life origin.
I didn't know much about Robert Freegard until I watched this film. As a general rule, I'm wary about films that dramatise recent events involving living people, because they can embellish the facts in a way that seems deeply unfair. But as far as I can tell, even though significant elements of the storyline are invented, there's actually nothing unfair about Rogue Agent. If anything, it flatters Freegard, a cruel conman, by having such a charismatic actor portray him.
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