Guy Moshe’s film hews a convoluted path from Kabul to Tehran, embroiling Zachary Levi, Liam Neeson and others in a muddled mix of gung-ho heroics and contrived intrigue. Having been shot well before the current U.S.-Iran conflict commenced lends “The Fix” a somewhat anachronistic air, albeit one that sits comfortably enough between its other fuzzy points of political messaging. This U.S. production from Israeli writer-director Guy Moshe sets a group of former CIA Special Ops agents, led by Zachary Levi, on a dangerous undercover mission in Tehran.
With dissident activists, hidden pre-Islamic Republic wealth, much gunplay and multiple double-crosses all involved, this polished, somewhat ungainly thriller emerges an entertaining yet less-than-fully satisfying mix of macho action heroics and convoluted espionage intrigue. In the long run it falls short of its own tangled ambitions. But Moshe and co. do make these nearly two-and-a-half hours pass in diverting if not terrifically suspenseful fashion.
A half-hour first act takes place during the 2021 evacuation of Kabul, as Tucker (Levi) and his men are tasked by handler Larry (Liam Neeson) with rescuing a key local ally before he’s captured by the Taliban. Tucker is forced to make emergency decisions that go against direct orders, which saves lives but gets his entire squad summarily dismissed from the Agency afterward. This action-packed prelude leaves them back in the U.S., where some time later the half-dozen men are all re-adjusting poorly to civilian life — including Tucker, who avoids much contact with his ex-wife and son because he considers himself damaged goods.
None are quite sure what to do with themselves. But reason to reassemble the team arises when Larry, whose prior migraines have somehow escalated into full-blown early-onset dementia, begins babbling out top-secret intel. That includes the news that he and another operative had somehow hidden millions in Tehran during the 1979 fall of the Shah’s regime.
Posing as a journalist, Tucker goes to interview the older man’s former paramour in Paris. She’s willing to point him towards that long-buried fortune — if he rescues her daughter Maryam (Lara Wolf), currently hiding in Iran from authorities for activism against the oppressive regime. Tucker reassembles what’s left of his crew for that purpose, each of them adopting a false front to infiltrate a hostile nation.
He himself poses as a New Zealander seeking to export rugs, accompanied by his newlywed wife. That role gets played by Zara (Elnaaz Norouzi), a Farsi-fluent university student he drafted in the U.S., without telling her the real purpose of their trip. Due to her reckless behavior, among other factors, this mission too eventually goes south.
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