Agentes dobles

There is some terrific writing in the script. The politics is sophisticated, and all these years later illuminating. The number of twists will keep you guessing. Hawkins is wonderful. All the British actors are.

However. Robertson is boring, not charismatic, not sexy, not funny . In the hands of a more appropriate actor this movie really could've been something.

From the film summary, you might be expecting more of a Ransom of Red Chief -type story , but it is not that . It is all about the adults and their shenanigans.

Good story marred by poor choice of lead actor and sluggish pacing, possibly the editor's fault.

Still, worth a watch.

"Masquerade" stars Cliff Robertson, Jack Hawkins, Charles Gray and several other excellent actors. With this cast, the film can't help be good....if it had a good script. Sadly, it doesn't have a decent script and characters simply defy beliavability.

Robertson plays David Frazer, an American who is somehow convinced to work for the British government. His job will be to keep watch over an obnoxious young man to is about to become the leader of his North African country. Why does the British government care? Well, they want a British company to secure the rights to the oil from this guy's nation.

While this plot doesn't sound bad at all, it is problematic because again and again and again, bad guys become good guys and vice-versa...to the point of absurdity. And all this plotting and scheming becomes tedious after a while and there really isn't any sort of a payoff by the end of the film. A big misfire.

The title and its introductory headline tells the whole story: everyone here is a fake, and the only innocent ones are stupid enough not to see them through but to just follow their tricks like sheep into a slaughterhouse. Although the dialog to start with is excellent, but the intrigue is constantly getting weaker and cheaper, almost like turning into a bad James Bond copy yarn of tiresome exertions. The intrigue starts to falter when the lady enters the plot and the agent doesn't see what should have been obvious from the start: if there is anyone you cannot trust in a political thriller game, it's an acting woman. That's elementary. The circus people turn out to be surprisingly honest after all, and it's a pity that Tutte Lermkow had to be shot. Michel Piccoli delivers the ultimate comment to the dirty business: "I hope they all kill each other." At least they try, but they all turn out more or less professional failures.

I watched it to see Robertson, Hawkins and Mell in a thriller, directed by Basil Dearden, and was very disappointed.

The story gets confused, you don't understand what is going on, on which side everyone is.

The kid is a bloody pain in the arse, an arrogant brat who thinks he owns everybody. I would give him a jolly good spanking.

Spain is portrayed as a third world country.

The baddies are a bunch of weirdos; what is a dwarf doing there?

A total misfire. It's hard to believe that this was made by the same man who directed "Victim", presenting gays as normal human beings in a time when homosexuality was a crime.

Marisa Mell, Michel Piccoli and Jack Hawkins were my reasons for seeing the film. Disappointment! All three are wasted in a banal, uninteresting, predictable story. Just a waste of time.