Convincing period settings highlight this uneven film inspired by some of the caper films of the 1930s focusing on a suave cat burglar in London blackmailed into service for the Allies. He is tasked with trying to break into the imposing German Embassy and stealing some gems in an attempt to foil a Nazi plot.
A fun concept somehow goes astray and never realizes its full potential. Director Roger Young and company take an old-fashioned plot, dress it up in dandy clothes, add some dashes of modern sex, violence and nudity, but their final effort falls apart long before the conclusion and, at least in one case, it is not hard to see why.
A plot this simple should move with fleet feet, but the pace instead moves in fits and starts. The bones of a great film are here, but they are never fleshed out enough and some convoluted plot additions do not help. The film drags on long past the point it should have concluded and contains at least one too many conclusions.
The production looks great and sports a fine supporting cast. Bob Hoskins is on hand as a sputtering British bobby who does not like giving the elusive Lassiter a get-out-jail-free card for his efforts. Jane Seymour is as pretty as a porcelain doll as Lassiter's girl Friday. Lauren Hutton has a field day as the sexually voracious and deadly German courier whom Lassiter must romance in order to scope out the interior of the German Embassy. Unfortunately, after presenting Hutton as a truly deadly nemesis, the film completely bungles their final confrontation and fails to show us their love scene, which one would imagine would have been wild indeed.
The film's biggest problem lies with its leading man. Obviously the character of Lassiter conjures up the likes of a George Sanders, David Niven or Cary Grant. In short, it requires someone charismatic, urbane, debonair yet able to pull off the physical action required. After having bored us to death two years previously with a similar period adventure in High Road to China, actor Tom Selleck now torpedoes another period piece. Where debonair is called upon, Selleck gives us dull. Where suspense and action are called for, Selleck gives us lifeless. He comes off as little more than a good-looking prop who can barely summon the energy to move from point A to point B on the set. I would say he is wooden, but I am afraid to libel a tree. He never seems much of a match for Hutton, proves a dismally lacking romantic foil for Seymour and comes off as little better than a stunt man in the action scenes. We have no rooting interest nor concern in what happens with this character and that is largely the fault of Selleck's lackluster performance. By the film's conclusion, quite literally the ONLY memorable thing that Selleck has contributed is in briefly baring his best asset while exiting Hutton's bed in the nude. This stellar contribution is offset moments later when a guard catches him lounging around in Hutton's frilly robe and a scene where the actor could have demonstrated a light comic touch is instead played as if a humorless mannequin inhabited the part.
Rarely have I seen an actor whose low-wattage on screen personality so completely sabotages a film (Rob Lowe's ho-hum performance in Masquerade comes to mind, but that film was strong enough to overcome him), as what Selleck does here. Hollywood was and is teaming with a lot of good-looking leading men, so why filmmakers would choose to fill such a role as this with an actor of arguably no charisma or life is a real head-scratcher. In all honesty, in some scenes Lassiter could have been portrayed by a chair and the end result would offer no difference than what Selleck contributes here.
A fun concept somehow goes astray and never realizes its full potential. Director Roger Young and company take an old-fashioned plot, dress it up in dandy clothes, add some dashes of modern sex, violence and nudity, but their final effort falls apart long before the conclusion and, at least in one case, it is not hard to see why.
A plot this simple should move with fleet feet, but the pace instead moves in fits and starts. The bones of a great film are here, but they are never fleshed out enough and some convoluted plot additions do not help. The film drags on long past the point it should have concluded and contains at least one too many conclusions.
The production looks great and sports a fine supporting cast. Bob Hoskins is on hand as a sputtering British bobby who does not like giving the elusive Lassiter a get-out-jail-free card for his efforts. Jane Seymour is as pretty as a porcelain doll as Lassiter's girl Friday. Lauren Hutton has a field day as the sexually voracious and deadly German courier whom Lassiter must romance in order to scope out the interior of the German Embassy. Unfortunately, after presenting Hutton as a truly deadly nemesis, the film completely bungles their final confrontation and fails to show us their love scene, which one would imagine would have been wild indeed.
The film's biggest problem lies with its leading man. Obviously the character of Lassiter conjures up the likes of a George Sanders, David Niven or Cary Grant. In short, it requires someone charismatic, urbane, debonair yet able to pull off the physical action required. After having bored us to death two years previously with a similar period adventure in High Road to China, actor Tom Selleck now torpedoes another period piece. Where debonair is called upon, Selleck gives us dull. Where suspense and action are called for, Selleck gives us lifeless. He comes off as little more than a good-looking prop who can barely summon the energy to move from point A to point B on the set. I would say he is wooden, but I am afraid to libel a tree. He never seems much of a match for Hutton, proves a dismally lacking romantic foil for Seymour and comes off as little better than a stunt man in the action scenes. We have no rooting interest nor concern in what happens with this character and that is largely the fault of Selleck's lackluster performance. By the film's conclusion, quite literally the ONLY memorable thing that Selleck has contributed is in briefly baring his best asset while exiting Hutton's bed in the nude. This stellar contribution is offset moments later when a guard catches him lounging around in Hutton's frilly robe and a scene where the actor could have demonstrated a light comic touch is instead played as if a humorless mannequin inhabited the part.
Rarely have I seen an actor whose low-wattage on screen personality so completely sabotages a film (Rob Lowe's ho-hum performance in Masquerade comes to mind, but that film was strong enough to overcome him), as what Selleck does here. Hollywood was and is teaming with a lot of good-looking leading men, so why filmmakers would choose to fill such a role as this with an actor of arguably no charisma or life is a real head-scratcher. In all honesty, in some scenes Lassiter could have been portrayed by a chair and the end result would offer no difference than what Selleck contributes here.