This movie seems to be pulling in so many different directions at once that it's difficult to figure out exactly what the filmmakers were actually trying to achieve. Was this intended to be a science- fiction thriller, a political comment on totalitarianism, a comedy or perhaps all three at once? It certainly seems to be a bit of all three at various times, and sometimes all three at the same time. Perhaps it is for that reason that the cumulative effect is a bit bizarre and doesn't quite work. For example, if this movie wasn't intended to be a comedy then why did they cast Paul Douglas and Leslie Phillips, both of whom were known principally for playing comic parts, in the two lead roles? And why do the police who administer the supposed Police State in the movie go about dressed in comic opera uniforms and seem no more formidable than the proverbial "Keystone Kops"? Even the head of the police comes off as such a hopeless buffoon that it is impossible to feel the least bit intimidated by him. One gets the impression that the country in the film was supposed to represent a sort of miniature Nazi Germany or Stalinist Soviet Union, but it simply comes off as a slightly bonkers version of San Marino or Andorra, complete with the obligatory colorful folkways.
See this if you have never seen it, just for the experience of a film that is so truly strange that it is almost impossible to categorize under any single genre.
See this if you have never seen it, just for the experience of a film that is so truly strange that it is almost impossible to categorize under any single genre.