One of 's underrated espionage movies from 2021 has been hailed by a former CIA agent. The actor began his career in 2004 when he landed a role as Stephen Hawking in the television feature, Hawking. Since then, Benedict Cumberbatch's career has spanned across numerous different genres, and he's excelled in roles that stretched his acting to new heights. He achieved his biggest breakthrough when he landed the role of the modern detective in the BBC's hit series, Sherlock, starring alongside Martin Freeman's John Watson. The show ultimately put him in the spotlight and gained him a huge fanbase.

He has starred in a number of Oscar-nominated movies over the course of his career, but most memorably portrayed the war hero, Alan Turing, in The Imitation Game, which is based on a true story. Cumberbatch later found momentum in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the beloved hero Doctor Strange. Whether delivering a powerful performance or embodying characters like Smaug the dragon through his physicality in Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies, and achieves significant success. While historical accuracy is often a hallmark of all his films, one specific project was crucial for him to achieve this.

A former CIA agent lauded Cumberbatch's spy thriller, , for its flawless depiction of gadgets, a fact that makes the film's underestimation even more surprising. Based on the true story of Greville Wynne, an unsuspecting MI6 agent during the Cold War, . With Cumberbatch leading The Courier, Wynne strikes up an unexpected friendship with a Soviet intelligence officer, Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze). The film makes only minor adjustments for dramatic effect, but this chilling historical drama otherwise precisely portrays the era, including the spy gadgets that were foundational to its main story.

In an episode of "How Real Is It?" with Insider, Dawn Meyerriecks ranks numerous pieces of spy gadgets in film and TV. Given her background as the former CIA deputy director of science and technology, Meyerriecks' opinion carries significant weight. The movie's accuracy accounts for the smallest details in the three clips presented to the former agent, who was stunned by The Courier's natural precision. At one point during a shot-by-shot scene, Meyerriecks reveals the gadgets used here are "the very simple, non-glamorous, but extremely critical technology that we provide to assets," . Check out the full comments below:

"So this clip, obviously, is a little dated but it depicts an MI6 asset that is spying on the Russians and their nuclear capability. And the camera is absolutely- I mean, if you visit the CIA museum, and yes, it does have a museum and you can visit it, you will see something that looks exactly like that camera in there, so that's very realistic. The other thing I think I'll mention is that when, um, assets like this are recruited, the time that we get to spend with them is exactly spent on things like this. 'How do you use this camera so that when you are in the moment, you're not thinking about the mechanics of using the camera. Making it as simple as possible, so basically, if you slide it, it takes the picture.

So, for a variety of reasons, I would think that meeting in a car like that would be highly unusual. Candidly, you know, if it's a higher echelon Russian, it would be very unusual for them to be sharing a car with non-Russians, right? Or, people who are not normally aligned. If we have a valuable asset, we do not want to risk them. But you can do, I'll say passes like that in other circumstances, you know? Crowded train stations, any place where there's a big crowd, you know, you hit each other as you walk past. It's the same principle that people pickpocket - very much the same idea.

And you also notice how simple is all the tech in all of this. There's almost nothing that can go wrong, right? If he screws together the cylinder right, if you're gonna leave a message in a 'dead drop' - we'll call it - in a canister, you know, how you do that and the best circumstances to do that so that it's not alerting? In this case, it's like 'I'm not gonna reach under a sink in a public bathroom and pick up a canister that's unmarked, like ew!' All of that is very much, um, the very simple, non-glamorous but extremely critical technology that we provide to assets.

I think the time-lapse between this clip, and what happens today is that there's a lot more tech out there and available in everyday objects, you know? To be geeky internet of things, everybody expects things to be smart now, including your toaster, so that gives us a much broader operational canvas that we can paint on that is non-altering. This is a 10, 10, 10, 10, 10! Whoever did this had great consultants and decided they were going to raise the tension by, like, really putting you into that moment and what that feels like as opposed to all the spy gear."

At the time of release, The Courier went somewhat under the radar. It gained generally favorable reviews and performed modestly, totaling $26 million worldwide at the box office. Despite being one of the strongest movies of 2020, many consider it to be one of the most underrated projects of that year. , drawing in a larger audience and potentially leading to a surge in streaming. Considering that this film recounts a chilling true story from the 1960s, the accuracy of its spy gadgets is fundamental to its credibility.

The Courier avoids fantastical and over-the-top gadgets, as seen in other espionage films like James Bond. The film emphasizes simple, yet effective, ways of hiding and transporting information which were, in fact, common practice. The accurate depiction of these subtle technologies . The film captures the tense atmosphere of the mid-stages of the Cold War for several reasons. However, featuring low-tech, practical techniques makes The Courier feel much more grounded and intimate. The perfect score for Cumberbatch's espionage film is well-deserved, and reflects 's meticulous commitment to historical accuracy.

Source: Insider