Reviews

This film is a classic case of a director at work who does not know how to direct. Dialogue awful. Acting poor. Plot ridiculous. A comedy requires humour and timing, both of which were sorely lacking. Too many scenes were simply too long. The plot line was absurd with reputable actors struggling to deliver awful dialogue, failing to make it convincing. A complete waste of almost two hours of my life. I can only advise: do not consider for a moment that this awful excuse for entertainment is worth watching... it is not!

What an amazing cast with all the potential to make this a memorable flick. Peter Green in particular is fabulously sinister, but was sadly under-exploited by a country mile - what a pity. Denis Leary as usual delivered perfection and what a complete disaster this movie would have been without him. It started kinda OK and then slowly slid downhill all the way. The overall plot had potential, but it failed to hit the mark: far, far too many unlikely scenarios and too many loose ends. By the time we reached the ending it was obvious the screenwriter/director had run out of ideas. What a shame. I like my movies to be believable, I don't like shouting at the characters to do what they should/would be doing if this wasn't the movies. Too often, the chance to build tension and suspense was lost with the urge to inject quirky humor. Perhaps it's worth the watch in the hope that it might not be as poor as I claim, but you can forget any ideas of a second glance.

Perhaps it's unfair to write this brief critique because it is one of just three movies I have failed to watch the whole way through. I simply couldn't stomach any more of it. The overall impression was of a bunch of amateurs at work, and that includes both cast and crew. Tacky, unconvincing, shallow, etc., etc. The screenplay was written by someone who doesn't understand dialogue. The editing (the shot sequences) was poor and seemed to have been done by someone who lacked a basic understanding of the rules. The music was all wrong... it simple didn't work, it didn't belong. The acting was poor and unconvincing. The story-line (what story-line?) was disjointed and all over the place. The aerial dog fights were a waste of time - again, totally unconvincing. Who directed this mess? I really should check that out, I'll make a point of avoiding anything else he/she might have been involved in. If you have something else that needs doing, such as counting flies or chasing sardines, do it! Do not waste a second of your life with this utter rubbish.

A merry yarn and predictably cheesy in all the right places. The fight scenes are particularly wanting and the dialogue is more than inadequate in places, but one is compelled to hang in there to let the plot unravel. The characters are implausible rather than larger-than-life, especially the Arab contingent, but this was 1965 and the swinging sixties seems an acceptable excuse. As usual, for movies of this period and genre, the hero is sadly old enough to be the father of the damsel in distress, leaving one to wonder: where were all the young, virile men before 1970? Perhaps it's also somewhat surprising that, being a British-made film, there is a distinct lack of black actors and extras, especially as this actually was filmed in Mozambique! Overall, it's not the worst way to kill an hour and a half, unless you have something better to do such as walk the dog.

With a cast that included Ian McShane, Hugh Jackman and Charles Dance, I expected a lot from this movie. It was dreadfully disappointing. The plot, the dialogue and, with the exception of the aforementioned characters, the acting, were all well below par, helped in no small part by Woody Allen's unconvincing bumbling. I'm a big Woody Allen fan, but, like a good wine that has past its sell-by date, the sense of timing is gone and the jokes are worse than dated... they simply were not funny. It's the kind of movie that perhaps had its heyday in the 1970s: naïvety and cliché abound and the over-used and over-abused "urban American meets upper class English society" is tedious. It started well... the early scenes with Ian McShane promised something original, but the promise soon fizzled out and the whole thing became tiresome. The various scenarios and the overall plot were unconvincing and totally improbable. Having endured the whole movie, I'm left feeling I've wasted ninety minutes of my life!

Where have they been hiding this one all these years? It's just too real... I had to check it out on the internet to find out it is fiction! Being a real life news/documentary cameraman, I can tell you that this is totally convincing and compulsive. I happened upon it shortly after it was being screened and could not take my eyes off it. The reporter in particular is absolutely the real deal. I'm watching the screen thinking to myself "how come I haven't heard about this before? The assassin... who is this guy and how come I haven't heard about him before now?" This is definitely one for the DVD collection and definitely a one hundred percent MUST SEE BEFORE I DIE!!