Bullet to Beijing

Michael Caine reprises his portrayal of the Len Deighton character "Harry Palmer" in this rather cheap and cheerful cold-war thriller. This time he joins forces with the handsome, but lightweight, Jason Connery ("Nick") as they work for the enigmatic "Alex" (an unlikely Russian Michael Gambon) to thwart a deadly plan to release a virus that has been pinched by some North Koreans. A few other familiar faces try their best to pep this along, but it's really just an amalgam of themes that is well past it's sell by date. Caine is there, but he isn't - maybe another swimming pool? The dialogue is really pretty pedestrian (though the "we're all getting a bit too old for this" byline does raise a smile now and again). It's got plenty of stylish location photography and the action scenes - of which there is a distinct paucity - are quite good fun when we get them. Otherwise, it's a mediocre television movie that I found placed the "Palmer' character in a series of fish-out-of-water scenarios that rather undermined the charm and novelty of his earlier outings. Caine can carry a film, his sheer weight of personality does that here - but this is certainly nobody's finest work.

Okay so it's not as good as the Ipcress File etc, but did anybody really expect that? Sure it doesn't all add up and the continuity is a bit suspect but I have to say that I really thought it was good fun. I was surprised to see it was made in 1995 because Jason Connery was sporting a very 1980's hair do, I actually thought it was Martin Fry from ABC. In summary, a bit shaky but it holds your attention throughout and has some good lines.

After almost thirty years, Michael Caine is back playing Harry Palmer. However, it has been THIRTY YEARS--and, like the expression goes, you can never go back--and that certainly is true of "Bullet to Beijing". Unlike the earlier Palmer stories, Len Deighton was not involved with this one...and I think it shows. The first three films of the series ("The Ipcress File", "Funeral in Berlin" and "Billion Dollar Brain") were great--a nice alternative to a Bond film. Here, however, it looks like there is a lot more Bond and a lot less Harry Palmer.

After three decades with the British secret service, Palmer is summarily retired without so much as a thank you. Soon, he receives an offer to work for someone else--though they don't identify who they are--they just give him a ticket to meet them in Russia. Harry takes the offer (why?) and soon is transported into a world completely unlike his earlier film efforts. Here is the problem--the film is again and again an ACTION film. But the earlier films deliberately avoided being action films. Sure, things happened--but most of the time Palmer stood by on the sidelines. And, there were none of the usual insane James Bond miraculous escapes. Here in "Bullet to Beijing", it's one action sequence after another after another--including way too many shootouts that resulted in folks with pistols taking out many folks with machine guns!!! Now I know a marksman can do amazing things with a pistol--but to again and again take out baddies with automatic weapons?! And, the other major problem is that folks keep changing sides!! Again and again, you need a scorecard to keep track of who is one who's side! To me, this just seemed sloppy. The overall effort is a passable ACTION film but one severely disappointing to those expecting the Harry Palmer of old. It's made worse by the end, where, inexplicably, the baddies just let Palmer go after he destroys their evil plan!!! Uggh.

Having heard mixed reviews about this and it's follow up, which almost made Caine retire, I have to say it's better than I was expecting. True there are a lot of shady characters, Connery, Sara , Kwouk etc, but I think this leads to the thrill of the movie. However, it does look like a TV movie and the true bad guy hardly makes an appearance. Decent movie, nothing more.

Return of Harry Palmer is not as bad as expected and is occasionally amusing. The fact that I can only recall a funny car chase scene with falling apart Russian cars is ominous, though. Someone mentioned a boat chase and I vaguely remember it although what it was about, I don't know. Certainly, it's sell out to modernity with violent shoot-outs and deaths seems incongruous to the originals. palmer only shot one person the entire trilogy, If I recall correctly.

The Palmer of those films was something of a blank page. An ironic and detached observer of the self interest around him, surviving on a combination of quick wit, luck and a lack of an ideological axe to grind. His inability to be tempted into corruption at various stages was surprising seeing as he was originally a tacky fraudster in the army but perhaps it's unwise to try and do an analysis of comic book characters, they're basically tosh. The Palmer of 'Bullet' has lost that sixties cool and it's hard to recognise him. He's more like an ex-football or pool hall manager with a drink problem or simply Caine being more his working class self. The effect is rather curious viewing, whimsical but rather sad, as cinema itself is in decline nowadays. Some of the old stalwarts remain, such as Harry meeting 'old friends' who turn out to have no qualms in dispensing with him altogether in the terminal sense. The sequel fizzles out altogether. 'Bullet To Beijing' is only to be viewed as a last resort, that is you have been made redundant, your wife has left you and your TV license is about to expire with no money left in the kitty to renew it.