The Jigsaw Man [ 1983 ]

Worth a watch for the cast and Caine's attempts to wrestle a Russian accent to the ground provide unintentional laughs. As other reviewers have pointed out, this is no Sleith but for British film lovers this is undemanding Sunday matinee fodder with transplanted faces, Soviet killers who liquidate people with a particularly terrifying carpet and Olivier shouting and bawling like a teething toddler with a paintbrush beard, wooden leg and eyepatch. Well, almost! Acting award split evenly between Charles Gray and Robert Powell who are more convincing than the leads. A lesser known team up between Terence Young and Freddie Francis for any Hammer heads out there, although severely diluted from the peak of their Gothic powers.

Moronically tedious spy `thriller' The Jigsaw Man is one of those staggeringly inept movies where it's all too obvious that they ran out of money and had to shut down mid-shoot but it's rather harder to credit that they found someone who thought what they had was worth investing in to finish. On paper the pitch might have seemed more attractive - reuniting "the director of From Russia With Love, the stars of Sleuth, and I'll throw in one of the Blofelds (the one who wasn't bald), Jesus of Nazareth and that bird out of Straw Dogs as well for you, can't miss, guv" - but onscreen it's such a mess it's no wonder it barely got released. When they did get the completion money it's obvious Caine was either too busy to come back or could only give them a couple of days, because at least one key scene is missing and has to be recounted in dialog.

It's almost a shame, because this is one of Caine's very worst performances, lazy and uncommitted to the material and completely oblivious to just how ridiculous he looks and sounds and how much unintentional comedy he provides. An early training montage sees him delicately patting a punchbag in a display of deadly Karate skills or demonstrating his stamina by peddling very slowly on an exercise bike, while he goes through a variety of disguises that wouldn't fool a corpse. But the real highlight is when the moustachioed Caine puts on a Russian accent and speaks in broken English ("Poot yurr hends on der sit plizz tankyou") that is such an uncanny forerunner of Borat that you cannot believe that Sacha Baron Cohen didn't study the film intently and base his performance on it. All that's missing is the bouffant hair. By contrast even the elderly Olivier, obviously just here to top up the kids' college fund, looks good as he hams his way through lines like "Do I look like anyone's bloody comrade?" or "Don't you see that I love you? I'll see to it that you never see him again! Never, you hear me?"

There's a certain car crash fascination to it all thanks to the atrocious script ("I'm sorry I killed your friend Patrick. War is bad." "That doesn't matter."), pitiful performances (take a special bow Susan George), and direction that would shame East European cable TV (well, the camera is more or less pointed in the right direction) - but unless you have a burning desire to see Charles Gray in the screen's worst bald cap comparing his head to a penis while propositioning a trouserless Robert Powell in his bathroom, you really don't need this in your life. It's not a movie, it's a drinks coaster.

Michael Caine's risible attempt at a Russian accent sets the tone for this ludicrous spy caper released in 1982, though with such as Robert Powell and Susan George in it, the feel is more that of a shallow 70's spy yarn such as The Tamarind Seed.

Laurence Olivier, as a retired admiral and "head of ALL (lol) British secret services" has tried to make his part credible by, I think, anachronistically modelling himself on Mansfield Cumming, the original 'C' from the 1920's, complete, in this reprise, with wooden leg, beard, short fuse and a tendency to smash his walking stick on the table (Cumming used the wooden leg itself!). Olivier's admiral lacks only a parrot on his shoulder...

Even if Caine were a better actor, he would have no chance here as Phillip (Phil?) Kimberley, not unalike to, yes you guessed it...Kim Philby! Clever, that transposition, what? Codes, old boy lol!

Susan George gives her usual Wooden Meets Hysterical performance and Robert Powell leaves out the hysteria; in fact, Powell gives a good impression of an android, unable to show credible emotion even in clinching with Susan George.

The plot, such as it is, is not so much thin as not there at all; what there is of it is enough to make one snort with laughter, that someone actually thought this stuff would sell. I hope it never did.

I would have given this film one star were it not for the very good locations and interiors, especially the "Soviet" ones at the beginning, particularly to be commended in view of the fact that, in 1983 or before, this film must have been made outside Russia itself.