THE INNOCENT
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1995 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): 1/2
THE INNOCENT tells the story of a British phone company engineer, Leonard Markham (Campbell Scott) who is called on to help the Americans led by Bob Glass (Anthony Hopkins) in tapping Russian phone lines in Berlin in the early 60s. Leonard falls head over heels in love with a local German girl called Maria (Isabella Rossellini). She is inconveniently still married to Otto (Ronald Nitschke).
THE INNOCENT is directed by John Schlesinger who has made a long string of excellent movies (MIDNIGHT COWBOY, FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, and PACIFIC HEIGHTS among others). Here he falls asleep on the job. For some reason, he must have managed to miss every screening of the dailies. If he had seen what a turkey he was creating, he would certainly have made major changes or abandoned the project altogether. It tells a story that never engages or involves the audience and lacks any semblance of energy.
It is hard to enumerate all of problems in this disaster of a movie, but I will try to give a few. Why did the producers (Norma Heyman, Wieland Schulz-Keil, Chris Sievernich, and Ingrid Windisch) get a famous British actor (Hopkins) to play an American and sign up a third-rate American to play a Brit? Why didn't Schlesinger realize how ridiculous all of the accents were?
Hopkins plays a cliche of an Ugly American. He is obnoxious and loud and speaks in an exaggerated style. Campbell, on the other hand, never enunciates a single word. When he speaks, he mumbles in a low and nondescript accent. He acts as if he is on heavy tranquilizers. Rossellini does sound German, but like the most of the rest of the cast, almost all of her lines are whispered or mumbled as if she is afraid someone might hear what she is saying since she is ashamed to have signed on to do this awful movie. She giggles a lot and makes meaningless small talk in most scenes. Hopkins is one of the greatest actors alive today and Rossellini is quite good so that it is embarrassing to see them act so poorly. It is the worst acting performance in Hopkins career.
The acting and directing are not the only problems. The script (Ian McEwan) has no content. If you are able to understand the mumbles, you realize the dialog is not worth hearing anyway. Moreover, the plot takes many uninteresting and even more implausible twists and turns. The movie is never realistic and you never care for any of the characters. The script makes a major detour in the last part, and McEwan tries to mimic a Hitchcock thriller. Instead it turns into a poor quality slasher movie.
There is a single funny line in the whole show. When Leonard is under the covers in Maria's bed, she asks what he does and he retorts that he is "an undercover agent." This really funny line is flubbed in the movie since he mumbles it.
One final absurdity. The makeup and hairdos by Christine Beveridge of Maria and Leonard 28 years later are unrealistic. It looks like that got a little hair frosting and nothing more.
THE INNOCENT goes on and on at 1:58 thanks to slow and plodding editing by Richard Marden. I stupidly saw it all. Like the movie, the credits move at a snail's pace as this were GANDHI and the audience would not want to miss a single name. The movie is rated R for gory, bloody, and gratuitous violence, sex, very brief nudity, and some profanity. In the US, THE INNOCENT has been sitting on the shelf for three years now. It was released first in Germany with the pompous title of "... UND DER HIMMEL STEHT STILL". It was to have been a Paramount release, but they sold it to Miramax since it is a putative art house style film I guess. THE INNOCENT is being advertised as an erotic Cold War thriller with the byline of "The only thing you can trust is your heart." Well, trust this review instead and don't get within a mile of it. By the way, there is not a single erotic frame in the movie. I award this dog only one half of one star.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEWED WRITTEN ON: September 8, 1995
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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