Heart of Stone

• Directed by Tom Harper
• August 11, 2023
• Netflix

When her cover is blown, a mole in MI6 must stop a group from stealing a quantum computer called the Heart.

I’ve heard Heart of Stone called a by the numbers spy thriller. I’m not sure if I would necessarily call it that, but it’s certainly nothing too special. Especially with artificial intelligence being at the center of the plot of Mission: Impossible–Dead Reckoning Part One. Considering that Skydance was involved in both I think they got a bit lazy in their ideas. But that’s not the only thing that makes it less special. 

Gal Gadot plays Rachel Stone (didn’t take long for part of the title to get mentioned) who appears to be working for MI6 but is actually working for a group called The Charter who are a group of independent intelligence agents working to eliminate threats as they pop up or ones that their governments would not let them handle. Think an inversion of Alias or a more serious take on Archer. The Charter uses a quantum computer called The Heart to track down/identify/deal with threats.

Stone’s MI6 team is killed by one of their own who is revealed to be one of two threats in the story and the story becomes about stopping their evil plan. At least the evil plan of one and the misguided actions of the other because they’re really a nice person and just angry.

I am referring to the character of Keya Dhawan (Alia Bhatt). After an introduction where she acts a bit cocky, Keya is reframed by the end as a misguided soul who is really trying to do a good thing. I myself am not sure if that character is misguided or simply stupid. She’s smart enough to hack into government computer systems and track down this hyper secret independent espionage agency that only exist via rumor and innuendo, but isn’t smart enough to realize somebody might want to use the super advanced computer system she’s going to use to expose some guy who got her parents killed for nefarious purposes?

I might even be willing to give that she didn’t quite realize that at first, but after the first two times Parker (Jamie Dornan) killed red flags should’ve gone up everywhere and rather than pick the worst possible moment to switch sides and help out Stone, Keya should’ve jumped ship well before then. Maybe after she found out he killed his entire team might have been appropriate time and she notes that their agreement was based on no killing.

Parker’s motivation for turning did not feel strong. Then again it was tossed in rather than built up. Nobody cared necessarily why he turned but more that he turned. I would have been fine if they stuck with that as it would have made him more dangerous. As it is it comes off like he really did not understand how his job worked.

Stone’s feelings for her comrades and anger over their deaths is her motivation but aside from a scene in an eatery after a botched mission (where Stone leaves rather quickly) we get nothing that demonstrates connection. There is the implication that Stone’s heart is better than the Heart’s analysis. It even gets implied briefly she suspected Parker of being rogue before he killed. But those emotional reasons never get constructed. They just are.

Nobody really ends the film at a distinctly different position than they started the film. Hacker girl still wants change but realizes aligning with murderous spies is not the way. Charter seems to embrace Stone’s gut instinct approach, though they never really smacked her down for it anyway. Stone is still spying and doing things her way which didn’t seem to be too much of a problem before. If this were a bit more of a fun spy film in the mold of the old James Bond that would be okay but they keep trying to push this as a serious movie with elements of spy-fi in it  which makes that lack of character change a little less okay. 

I can’t call Heart of Stone a bad movie but it’s not great. It’s entertaining enough and you won’t feel like you wasted your time, but most likely you will not watch it again. And that’s because it is not that special.