Simon Templar (Val Kilmer) is a world-renowned thief who makes a lucrative living stealing industrial secrets.
One of these jobs puts him in the crosshairs of Russian oligarch Ivan Tretiak (Rade Šerbedžija), who wants him dead.
To draw him out, Tretiak dangles a job with a massive payday.
The job requires Templar to steal the formula for cold fusion from an eccentric scientist, Dr. Emma Russell (Elisabeth Shue).
One thing Templar does not plan for is falling in love with his target.
Soon the pair are on the run from Tretiak, while he enacts a scheme to bring Russia to its knees…
I have never read any of Leslie Chateris’s books or the Roger Moore TV series - thus the 1997 iteration of The Saint is the version the name conjures.
This is one of those movies that I watched several times as a kid. I have not seen it in years but I can remember huge chunks of it.
I was worried it would not stand up on this viewing, but I think this is the most I have enjoyed it.
Noyce has a sure hand with these kind of thriller mechanics.
There is none of the process or focus on family drama of the Jack Ryan movies, but Noyce has a no-frills approach that makes the ridiculousness come off.
With its supervillain and charming anti-hero, the movie is closer to the globe-trotting of Bond.
While I had never considered it before, it made me wonder what Noyce’s Bond movie would look like.
With years of distance, this film’s proximity to Bond is even more clear - ironic, considering Bond’s debt to Templar.
This movie was released two years after the Bond franchise relaunched, and it feels like an attempt at a similar franchise, with a few key differences: While he travels the world and seduces women, Kilmer’s Templar is a master of disguise and he avoids violence.
Strengthening the connection is the fact that The Saint is a GoldenEye reunion of sorts - cinematographer Phil Meheux and editor Terry Rawlings carry over.
Ironically, the element which felt the most Bondian is the score by Graeme Revell.
Combining orchestra and electronica, it is contemporary without feeling locked to it’s time. It gives the movie a sweep and sense of romanticism that the movie needs. It throws in a few stings of The Saint theme, but they are not the backbone of the movie.
With hindsight the most interesting aspect of the film is watching Templar as a representation of Kilmer himself - someone who is always wanting to play other people but when stripped of a disguise he is a blank.
Kilmer is having a great time, and his various characterisations are a big part of the movie’s appeal.
What also helps is the chemistry he shares with Elisabeth Shue.
On paper this story is a pile of hokum - nothing wrong with that because it is all in the execution.
Shue plays Dr Russell as a nerd - she comes across as slightly distracted and eccentric. She manages to make this character - and her attraction to the mysterious Templar - work.
Heck, if Kilmer and Shue were not playing these characters, the movie would not work.
The villains’ plot draws on the nineties obsession with post-Glasnost Russia. With two decades distance, this aspect of the plot is both relevant (the villain is a billionaire oligarch who wants to make Russia great again) and naive (the level of trust Templar’s final scheme depends upon is ridiculous).
Rade Šerbedžija is great as the villain. He is such a familiar face from my childhood, and it is always fun when he pops up in things. He brings a charm and ruthlessness to what could have been a cardboard villain.
The movie falters in the third act - it was re-shot and recut late in the day, and it feels slightly undercooked.
It is not dire, but it feels like the movie is trying to set up an arc for the Saint to find his own identity. Ending with the thief giving up a fortune for altruistic reasons is fine, but it lacks the punch that was perhaps intended.
Still, while the ending is damp, the journey makes The Saint worth a look.
No comments:
Post a Comment