Relativity Media

There's a specific generation of people who were born at just the right time to come of age in that exact period when Irish acting royalty Pierce Brosnan had his turn to be the world's smoothest Secret Service agent. His James Bond phase spanned four movies in seven years, long enough that then-young millennials had the chance to become a fan of the likely least favorite actor who slipped into the immaculate suits of the 007 spy. After the critically panned "Die Another Day" in 2002, however, Brosnan was done and out of the franchise as well as the genre, and it took him more than a decade to return to it in a vastly different and unglamorous role.

We're talking about Roger Donaldson's "The November Man," a 2014 by-the-numbers espionage thriller that pretty much came and went without much fanfare.…