THE SAINT
A film review by Chad Polenz
Copyright 1997 Chad Polenz
Chad'z rating: ** (out of 4 = fair) 1997, PG-13, 116 minutes [1 hour, 56 minutes] [thriller/action] starring: Val Kilmer (Simon Templar), Elisabeth Shue (Dr. Emma Russell), Rude Sebedzija (Ivan Tretiak), Valeri Nikolayev (Ilya Tretiak), written by Jonathon Hensleigh, Wesley Strick, produced by David Brown, Robert Evans, William J. MacDonald, Mace Nuefeld, directed by Phillip Noyce.
"The Saint" is probably one of the most mindless and typical of the modern Hollywood thrillers. It has a dashing hero, a beautiful damsel in distress, a villain from the cliche vaults, and an overly complicated plot which conviently provides for lots of action and special effects. But it is not these elements alone that make it mediocre, the film is just not interesting or impressive to begin with.
The film opens with a flashback to establish the main character's "origin." The setting is an old Catholic orphanage where the priests and nuns aren't just mean, they're evil. One boy refuses to go by his Catholic saint name, so he is beaten and the children's food is locked up until he complies with the priest's demands. But the child is clever and brave as he leads the children on a revolution of sorts. This scene did not serve any purpose at all. It seemed to be the worst case of Catholic bashing I have ever seen and was quite offensive.
We then skip ahead to the present day and meet the adult version of the rebellious child. His name is Simon Templar (Kilmer) and he seems much like James Bond, but instead of being a spy, he is a thief. And since this is a commercial film (with a huge budget) about espionage, the film tries to impress us quickly by having Templar attempt to steal a microchip from a highly secured building in Moscow. Of course he must single-handedly beat all the computer security systems (a la "Mission: Impossible"), fight a mobster, fall 40 stories and land safely, and then proceed to outrun and outwit lots of goons with Uzis.
The film then starts to form a plot as Templar's next assignment is to steal the formula for cold fusion from an American scientist in London. Her name is Dr. Emma Russell (Shue), a blonde bombshell who just happens to keep the formula for cold fusion on some Post-It notes in her bra! It's obvious where this film is going and it wouldn't have been so bad had it not presented itself in such a serious manner.
Templar proceeds to seduce Russell and steal her formula, but after being with her for only 24 hours the two seem to fall in love. Relationships in thriller and action movies such as these are always taken seriously because of the danger. Fear can be an erotic sensation, but here it is totally shallow.
Ever since the Cold War ended we haven't had a Russian villain, so it was actually a pleasure to have see one crop up. Rude Sebedzija co-stars as Ivan Tretiak, a Russian mobster who will stop at nothing to get Russell's magical formula. From the second act on, the film revolves around Templar and Russell's escape from Tretiak and his son Ilya's (Nikolayev) goons.
Along the way we get a lot of violent chase scenes, passion scenes, scenes that trick both the characters and the audience, but mostly a lot of action-packed chase scenes.
Major motion pictures such as these often use complex plots to make the viewer think it is an intelligent thriller when it's not. This film simply plugs in the villains, the plotlines, and the action at all the right places. None of these characters have much depth to them, their dialogue is too "written" to take seriously, even the actors seem bored at times. When the suspenseful, climatic scenes kick in, it's hard to be swept up in the adventure because you don't care.
The plot to "The Saint" was so confusing I'm having a difficult time recalling it, much less describing it. There isn't much to it, just another high tech government thriller that happens to take place in modern Russia. The reason most films of this genre fail is because they try too hard, this film doesn't try hard enough.
(4/8/97) (6/29/97) [see also: "Mission: Impossible"]
please visit Chad'z Movie Page @ http://members.aol.com/ChadPolenz E-mail: ChadPolenz@aol.com
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