Capricorn one 1977 watch online3/5/2023 ![]() So, the basic premise finds the KGB in a desperate attempt to avert WW3 when one of its clerks (albeit a high-ranking one) goes AWOL with a list of sleeper Soviet agents who have all been living in America deep under cover for the last 15 years. “Have you ever seen drug-induced hypnosis?” It’s more than just a slippery slope ethically speaking of course but the movie is very smart in not making this apparent until the end credits have rolled thanks to its non-stop action and its very attractive leads. This is achieved in a number of ways, mainly by making those in charge of the spies on both sides equally culpable in their generally disregard for the value of individual human life and by having the only people our heroes kill be agents who were involved in suicide missions anyway. This is actually pretty important so that Bronson is never for a moment considered what he normally would have been in such a movie – an enemy agent on foreign soil. That really is it as it otherwise eschews much in the way of characterisation or moral complexity, except a generally cynical approach to the world of espionage that dispenses with easy notions of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ (well, it was the ’70s after all). ![]() It is all about a villain (Pleasence) hell-bent on creating chaos for no very good reason and two agents set to stop him with little at stake personally except the urgency of the job at hand. It has a decent budget, an action star at the height of his success and a great director – but remains at heart a gimmick thriller, moving from one explosive set-piece to another. This is a film that relies mostly on a busy plot and several action set-pieces to keep you on your toes and it would be a shame to spoil too much of the narrative – for make no mistake about it, this is a B-movie through and through and the less you know, the better, because pretty much all that is good about it is there on the surface only. – from Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost The following review is offered as part of the Tuesday’s Overlooked Film meme hosted by Todd Mason over at his Sweet Freedom blog and you should head over there to see the many other fascinating titles that have been selected. But the film also take risks by having Bronson and Remick play KGB operatives – and they’re the good guys! Not bad for a movie released a decade before Glasnost … It often plays like across between The Manchurian Candidate (brainwashed killers triggered by a secret verbal cue) and the disaster-cum-conspiracy movie aesthetic of the era, cross-cutting between the heroes’ international exploits and several self-contained episodes of destruction caused by Donald Pleasence’s rogue agent. This adaptation of the 1975 spy novel by Walter Wager has a great central gimmick and features the unlikely pairing of granite-faced action hero Charles Bronson and high-class beauty Lee Remick under the take-no-prisoners direction of Don Siegel.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |