- Actors: Michael Caine, Sean Young, Ian Holm, Bobby Short, Alun Armstrong
- Directors: Russell Mulcahy
- Writers: Ron Hutchinson, Ted Allbeury
- Producers: Michael Caine, Barney Reisz, Gary Levinsohn, Louis A. Stroller, Martin Bregman
- Classification: 15
- Run Time: 105 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00008T4L1
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 9,562 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Harry Palmer 20 years on! An excellant cast, who should really know better, plod through this standard action fare. It's not all doom and gloom though, the ever watchable Caine is exactly that and even if you don't enjoy this film look out for the various famous british faces who appear throuout. Not a classic Caine by any means but not bad enough to fall into his extensive "will work for food" category.
Now this is by no means Michael Caine's finest effort and the story cannot be called imaginative, either. There are some aspects of the movie, though, which move it above the mere 'pay the bills' category.
Michael Caine stars as a retired secret service agent and to be honest the closest he gets to a James Bond (apart from a dig he makes in this direction early on during the movie) is his 1950s Jaguar XK150. He in fact reminds me more of Inspector Frost (from A Touch of Frost: Series 1-5 [DVD] [1992]) in his crankiness, with some Bogart thrown in (more on that later). And he of course gets the girl. The girl being the US ambassador's wife.
She gets him involved in a pretty predictable affair, involving arms dealing and a good guy turned villain. The action sequences seem a bit dated even for the late 80s / early 90s.
What makes this movie worth watching in the end are two things, the occassional humour, and the jazz - Harry (Michael Caine) owns a jazz bar called Harry's - in fact much of it could be picked straight from Casablanca [1942] [DVD]. The jazz club features in several of the scenes and the music played is pretty good. On top of that there are several decent dialogues, especially early in the movie (the quality starts suffering half way through), which may not be of the laugh out loud type but will suffice for the odd smile being elicited. The drugged questioning scene is not badly done, either.
So all in all not a Caine classic and not something you will watch again and again unless you are a Caine fanatic but it will not leave you thinking how you've just wasted two hours of your life after watching it, either.
Michael Caine stars as a retired secret service agent and to be honest the closest he gets to a James Bond (apart from a dig he makes in this direction early on during the movie) is his 1950s Jaguar XK150. He in fact reminds me more of Inspector Frost (from A Touch of Frost: Series 1-5 [DVD] [1992]) in his crankiness, with some Bogart thrown in (more on that later). And he of course gets the girl. The girl being the US ambassador's wife.
She gets him involved in a pretty predictable affair, involving arms dealing and a good guy turned villain. The action sequences seem a bit dated even for the late 80s / early 90s.
What makes this movie worth watching in the end are two things, the occassional humour, and the jazz - Harry (Michael Caine) owns a jazz bar called Harry's - in fact much of it could be picked straight from Casablanca [1942] [DVD]. The jazz club features in several of the scenes and the music played is pretty good. On top of that there are several decent dialogues, especially early in the movie (the quality starts suffering half way through), which may not be of the laugh out loud type but will suffice for the odd smile being elicited. The drugged questioning scene is not badly done, either.
So all in all not a Caine classic and not something you will watch again and again unless you are a Caine fanatic but it will not leave you thinking how you've just wasted two hours of your life after watching it, either.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
This film mixes an excellent blend of thriller, cars, jazz music with first class acting. The story is good enough to keep you guessing most of the time and includes good humour. I think it's a fine effort by all involved.
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