Curacao

As the title would suggest, this film was made on the Caribbean island of Curacao. However, though this is a beautiful location and the film is about spies, it's a surprisingly uninvolving tale...one that never really piqued my interest.

The story focuses on two men. Stephen (William Peterson) is ex-CIA and apparently he ticked off his bosses...so they banished him to this island and took away his passport. The other is an older man, Cornelius (George C. Scott). He was involved in some insurance scam and was also pretty much banished to this island. None of it is very exciting...and sorting it all out by the end of the film is a chore.

I think one of the worst things about this mediocre film is how often instead of really SHOWING things, they talk about them. There is some action at the end...but otherwise, it's a curiously uninvolving story. I think they actors tried...but the script felt like it was riddled with plot holes and was re-written one time too many.

What is wrong with CURACAO ( Also known as DEADLY CURRENTS though what the reasonn for the name change is I have no idea ) can probably be summed up where a woman says to her lover :

" Keep it down baby , I'm trying to sleep "

It's not the dialogue that's the problem or the way it's delivered , it's the fact the actress has has a Central European accent . Nothing wrong with that until it's revealed her character is from Philidelphia in the United States ! This what struck me about this thriller while watching it - The way accents don't match their characters . Apart from the Philly woman with a German accent we see a South African with an English accent , a local police chief who sounds like he's an Irishman impersonating a Gestapo officer and worst of all George C Scott playing someone who's either Dutch or British with an accent that sounds like it might be American tinged with South African . You soon give up following what's on screen and end up concentrating on what nationality a character might be due to the strange way they speak . It's interesting to note that this site hasn't given this movie a country of origin . With so many different actors from different countries you do feel that this was produced by the United Nations

Even if you're not curious about accents or dialects you'll probably have to give up following the action anyway because CURACAO is plot less . Things happen like a boat exploding , and a hostage situation and the hero being recruited as an agent for South African intelligence but you're left scratching your head wondering what the heck this is all leading to . I was lost

I just saw this movie on TV. I watched it because I am a great fan of William Peterson and I thought he was appropriately moody and mysterious in it. I liked the story and the way it was told and the bits of "colour locale" of Curacao, i.e. "Karnaval", which lasts about half a year now, I have been told. George C. Scott was, well, George C. Scott. He was never a favorite of mine, but he did the usual job.

What puzzled me is this: Trish vandeVere, Scott's last wife (how he ever could have picked this mediocre actress over the formidable COLLEEN DEWHURST will forever be a riddle to me, but then aging men do silly things) ... where was I ... Oh, ok, Ole Trish was billed as a major part, in the role of Rose.

Did anyone who saw this movie ever see Trish, or a person named Rose? I did not. Perhaps she was cut out of the TV version, but it was already a made for TV movie... so what was up with that. Just billing and bucks?

This is an intelligent and complex espionage thriller about "human assets"--not gadgetry. It's a story with grit and character--something we could use more of these days. It has more of an English worldly flavor than a slick and empty American one. The plot is timely, even though (or perhaps because) it's a 1993 movie. Greed, corruption at the government level, the little people who wind up paying. The main character is a jaundiced spy in the mold of Len Deighton's Harry Palmer. I watched it on NetFlix, who are using the inane title "CIA: Exiled." The production values are good, about B+ level. But these days I'd gladly give up some zillion dollar tripe for something that reminds me of life outside Hollywood.

I have just watched "Curacao"on cable and I found it quite reasonable for late night watching. It has nice exotic locations and quite a number of really mysterious characters. The storyline was at least as good as most of the crime investigation stories that William Peterson is in now that he is older. In some way which I can not really explain it reminded me of a Humphrey Bogart film, maybe with Alexei Sayle in the Sydney Greenstreet role. Re the character named Rose, played by Trish van Devere, I think that Stephen Geurin (William Petersen) called the secretary "Rose" when he went in to his office in the embassy near the beginning of the film.