Interesteg What makes it different from others?

mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

george-purdy The film differs from the book in that the crazy right wing politics is left out. (The labour party is not filled with communists.)Both the book and the film postulate goings on in Moscow Centre, but it just doesn't work that way. Readers of Le Carre's spy novels would tell you for example, that "Moscow Centre prides itself in always getting its agents back (alive.)" There is a James Bond film, Octopussy, with a similar story, trying to nuke a circus near a Nato airbase in Germany, rather than Britain, but that detail was probably inspired by this story as much as the books of Ian Fleming, who worked for Naval Intelligence and would have known better. The Americans were terrified of the prospect that a nuke might explode accidentally anywhere in Europe, because the gamma rays would be detected by US satellites, and Nato Rapid Deployment Bombers would immediately head for Russia, as a reflex action--this could not be stopped. The concern then was what the Russians would do when the RDBs showed up on their radar and there were no Nato exercises scheduled for that day. They hoped that cool heads would prevail, and that the Russians would wait to see if the bombers halted at their fail safe points. For reasons like this, it seems unlikely that even a rogue Russian General would arrange for such a nuclear incident.There's now an official history of MI6, by the way, "The Secret History of MI-6: 1909-1949," and a rogue British agent is detailed there, but he was only a little crazy.

Tweekums When this film was made nobody suspected that the Soviet Union would no longer exist in five years time; they were still the bad guys of choice for spy thrillers. Here a Soviet agent; Major Valeri Petrofsky has been tasked with a mission which if successful could spell the end of the North Atlantic alliance: his mission is to assemble a small nuclear bomb inside the United Kingdom and detonate it next to a US airbase... with the intention that everybody will believe it was an accident involving weapons on the base. Against him there is John Preston, a British agent, who stumbles upon the plot when one of the people bringing in one of the bomb components is killed in an accident.While there are a few plot holes it is possible to suspend ones disbelief as this is a fine thriller with great performances from lead actors Michael Caine and Peirce Brosnon who play Preston and the ice cold Petrofsky respectively. The action keeps up throughout the film from the start when traitor Kim Philby is killed to the end where Preston struggles with Petrofsky to prevent him detonating the bomb. That first scene was a bit of a problem for me however as it involved the killing of a real person who was very much alive at the time of the film's release; I think it would have been better to have had a renamed fictionalised version of him. Having recently watch Michael Caine play a similar role in the 1965 thriller 'The Ipcress File' it is great seeing that he can still be believable in such a role twenty years later.

Al At this stage of his career Pierce Brosnan was only known to me for his part in Remington Steele which was a fairly light role.In fact James Bond is a fairly harmless character compared to the ruthless agent he plays in this film. The urgency of his acting is the feature of this film.Caine's character is engaging but fails to keep pace with Brosnan's Petrofsky.I watched this on cable television in my hotel and was guessing throughout what year it might be by the devices used and cars driven.Another chilling role was the authoritative Sir Nigel Irvine played by the late Ian Richardson who dresses down the gormless character Anton Rogers plays "a treat." As Richardson rates amongst my top 5 actors it was a very enjoyable part of the film for me.Out of interest John Hurt, Alan Bates, Humphrey Bogart and Edward Woodward would be the other four.

ghostman1971 This is a very poor film giving the impression of a director who has no idea what he is doing. The film is a mess without any suspense what so ever. All there is is confusion for the viewer, as if the film maker in some way thought that that would make up for the very poor story. Throughout the film you are waiting for something exiting to happen but the climax never goes as the ending is as bad as the rest of this mess. Just skip this one!