I thought I was getting the Val Kilmer Saint
and for the first 15-minutes I kept expecting him to rip off his face and
Kilmer would be revealed. At some point, I began to realize I had the wrong
film but it was too late to bail. Anyways, it's The Saint and I had thought
the Kilmer version was the only film I hadn't seen of this iconic fictional
character. Well, actually I did see it years and years ago but that was mainly
for Elisabeth Shue and if my memory isn't playing tricks on me, it was pretty
bad but it deserves another look. This was a pilot for a hoped for TV series
and after watching it, there is no surprise that it wasn't picked up. Not
that it is terrible, mediocre would be a more fitting adjective. Too much
fancy technology, too much of a good guy, poor dialogue and a group of characters
that clearly were being set up to be in the series that were mainly annoying.
Not Eliza Dushku mind you. She is always welcome and she should have been
the Saint. Instead, we get Adam Rayner who is British enough but not Sainty
enough. We actually get three Saints which is a nice trick. Roger Moore (in
his final performance) shows up in a cameo at the end of the film as the
head of an evil organization and Ian Ogilvy (Return of the Saint 1978 - 1979)
is the real baddie.
It is always a good thing to see another
version of The Saint make its way to video, but one could certainly wish
for a better one than this rather lackluster attempt at launching a new TV
series. It is too bad because I love The Saint - the books from Leslie Charteris
are odd but ok - but they spawned the terrific films of the 30's and 40's
starring the debonair George Sanders and others and then the classic TV series
starring Roger Moore before his James Bond days. Here the Saint is an international
criminal with the FBI and Interpol after him, but he is too smart for them.
He manages to break up a money for an atomic bomb trade and walks away with
the money. Which he donates to good causes. Come on. Over his video lifetime,
the Saint has gone from cold-blooded killer in his first film to the smug
George Sanders Saint - to Tom Conway's less smug Saint to the Moore Saint
who at least had a crooked glint in his eye and now he is Robin Hood. Put
some starch back into this guy. Charteris would be aghast.
A rotter (Ogilvy) steals 2.5 billion dollars
from a poor African nation and gives the codes to his right-hand man (James
Remar) to safely put the money away but instead Remar gets a moment of guilt
and hides the money to later be sent back. Ogilvy does the natural
thing and kidnaps Remar's daughter with a threat to kill her. Simon shows
up to shoot a helicopter out of the sky and along with tech wizard Eliza
decides to rescue her, get the money and yes - send it back. Even a 10% finders
fee would be nice but nooo. This is not a Saint that I can respect. This
would have fit in fine in the 1970s, but TV production has moved on so much
since then.