It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

In spite of sporting a decent cast Damascus Cover, fails to impress. This is what I would describe as a "template film". It takes a standardised formula that been used many times before and adds in actors, props and sets, along with rather conventional narrative. The result is a shallow contrivance that lacks flair, corralling the actors performance's, offering little in the way of character growth and artistic improvisation. This is a genuine shame too, as there is some real talent in this cast, including I believe the final performance by the truly wonderful John Hurt.Just as regrettable is this film seems intent on portraying Syria as a haven for human rights abusers, torturers and escaped Nazi's. The latter hob nob with senior Syrian officials, whilst living the high life in Damascus. Whilst indeed there was a senior Nazi residing in Syria, he was not feted by the government but instead died whilst effectively under house arrest. Simply put there is not a lot to like here. I watched all of this film but found I was bored a good portion of the time by its overall blandness and lack of objectivity. Suffice to say there are far far better espionage thrillers on offer than this tepid affair. 4/10 from me.

Seeing 4.5 IMDB rating, I didn't have much hope for this movie when I sat down to watch it. But i should have known better than to trust IMDB ratings. That's not a knock on the website, but more on the crazy ratings some people give movies on here.This is a well-made, well-shot, well-acted movie. It isn;t the most original plot ever, but then that is true of most movies and doesn;t automatically make it bad. Indeed, the twist at the end was unexpected, and I'm usually pretty good at working such plot twists out.JRM does a good job in the lead role and the rest of the supporting cast are also very good. Any movie that features Igal Naor is a winner, too. He is such a good, engaging character actor and really should get more work in bigger movies.So, this is a well-made movie and we should all be supporting indie movie makers these days, with the big studios squashing the little guys. This movie is well worth watching.

I love this genre of spy film, and enjoyed it all the more in this film where the performances are so strong. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is brooding and excellent as a German businessman who is really an Israeli spy. John Hurt, (in one of his last roles) as the head of Israeli Intelligence and Navid Negahban as the head of Syrian Intelligence, present carefully crafted characters who personify both the internal struggles and moral compromises of those who seek to do good (Hurt) as well as those who so well capture in both their look and actions the banality of evil (Negahban). The story, about an Israeli spy who has shut down because of personal loss and is caught in a cycle of betrayal as he struggles to succeed on a mission during the early 90's in Damascus, Syria, which appears to be set up to fail, is well crafted and kept me guessing until the end.Admittedly, I look out for this kind of film, especially one set in the Middle East which offers such a stark glimpse into a region of the world beset by literally thousands of years of conflict and distrust. But the film, directed with admirable restraint and subtlety by Daniel Zelik Berk, also shows the real beauty and possibility of this region, and Rhys Meyers should receive kudos for his strong but guarded portrait of the lead character, Ari Ben-Sion, whose own pain from the loss of his young son drives him further and further into his cover as a spy, which he comes to realize is no safe or fulfilling life for anyone to have. Excellent cinematography and score.

This is a quite mediocre spy movie. I used to like this genre a lot and would have the keenest interest to see them through, but this film, well, right after about 15 minutes, I've already got bored, lost my interest and became awfully impatient to watch along. During the fifteen minutes, I've first found out that the casting job was terrible; Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who played the main role as an Israeli spy, was a terrible cast, I couldn't stand his swaggering walking and his faulty ridiculed way of speaking, trying to be a mixture of German and Israeli person. Then again, Olivia Thirlby, who played a USA Today journalist, shooting pictures of those Israeli weirdos around the Weeping Wall without any obvious reason. Then an absolutely weak and unconvincing chaos was so conveniently created and suddenly died down to offer the opportunity for her and JRM's acquaintance. What an awkward and terrible scenario that only a lousy screenplay would have crafted. Then finding and signing up lot of Middle Eastern actors with big hooked noses and demonic vicious faces to play the Syrians simply further turned me off right away. It's such an one-dimensional and highly predictable film, extremely mediocre. The only thing that worths your time was to take a look at those exotic scenes of the Middle Eastern city and village views, which by the same token, we've already seen thousand times in other films, including those travel documentary films and magazines. I'd never recommend you to waste your precious time to watch this mediocre film.