Detonator II: Night Watch

This is not a great film. It's certainly no Where Eagles Dare and it's not even a Puppet on a Chain. And if you were hoping for a Brosnan film in the style of Goldeneye or The Thomas Crown Affair, forget it. The cast deserve better, but if you ignore the star names and don't set your expectations too high, it's an OK TV action flick.

It wants to be a (low-budget) Bond movie with glamorous locations and a series of action sequences to make you forget a paper-thin plot, but there's no finesse to it, it's all a bit pedestrian. The dialogue creaks, the accents are all over the shop, and the direction uneven. There's several nods to Puppet on a Chain, with a lot of action set on the canals of Amsterdam, and I suspect that Brosnan had already been cast as Bond before filming the casino scene (Nightwatch came out a month before Goldeneye).

The main problem with the film is that it all hangs on the relationship between Brosnan and Paul, which has little chemistry and is badly developed. I've not read the book but it feels like a fairly minor female character has been expanded to accommodate Paul at the height of her Baywatch fame, when just following the original story was at the limits of the scriptwriter's capabilities - and writing decent dialogue was waaay beyond him.

Despite all that it rattles along at a reasonable pace, it's a passable way to spend 90 minutes if you don't expect too much of it.

I don't know much about Alistair McLean's series, "Detonator." I haven't seen the first film in this series but you don't need too. Pierce Brosnan played Michael Graham, an United Nations agent, who works with Alexandra Paul's Sabrina Carver to find the missing artistic masterpiece, "The Night Watch." They go around the world to Europe and Hong Kong to find it. Supporting cast actors, William Devane and Rolf Saxon do an admirable job in playing agents. The scenery in the film overshadows the plot. There is a budding chemistry and romance between Graham and Carver but predictable.

In this sequel to "Death Train" both "Michael Graham" (Pierce Brosnan) and "Sabrina Carver" (Alexandra Paul) return as two agents working for U.N.A.C.O (the United Nations Anti-Crime Organization) who are assigned to a case that involves the theft of the famous painting "The Night Watch" by Rembrandt. What they don't initially realize is that there is more to the story than this because the person behind these thefts, "Martin Schraeder" (Michael Shannon) has developed a computer chip which can eavesdrop on any phone conversation in the world. Not only that but this device can also kill any person who has their ear to a phone set as well. And since he is an avid art-collector "The Night Watch" was simply payment by a foreign government for the use of his device. Anyway, rather than detail any more of the movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this wasn't a bad sequel to the previous film "Death Train" (aka "Detonator"). Now, while I like both Pierce Brosnan and Alexandra Paul there didn't seem to be much chemistry between the two and it caused the film to seem a bit synthetic at times. No doubt the fact that this was a "made-for-television" movie had something to do with it. Still, I liked the different locations (Amsterdam and Hong Kong) and I have seen much worse in my time. That said I thought it was an okay sequel and I rate it as average.

Stay clear of this if you value good adaptations of Alistair McLean novels (Where Eagles Dare, The Guns of Navarone, Fear is My Weapon, etc). This must be the worst film made ever. The opening scene is hilarious, even though it clearly isn't supposed to be, the shooting scenes throughout are horrible, the acting appallingly bad, and after an hour you really just want it to end. Pierce Brosnan runs around looking like some American Hillibilly with his British accent shining through every other scene. His smug acting style fits his character, but he just doesn't pull it off. The female lead, Alexandra Paul, makes a performance that surely qualifies for some award given to least impressive acting job ever. Warm presence? Moronic presence I'd say. It really is painful to watch. I had to fast forward the thing in the end in order to avoid hurting myself badly with a stapler. Writer-directer David Jackson probably does his best to make something out of this low-budget production, but in the end the film should be taken to a back alley and put out of its misery.

I had heard of these Detonator movies Pierce Brosnan made films years. I found them at my local library and finally watched them. These are mostly a curiosity to his James Bond fans. I wonder when this second film was shot? Before or after his Goldeneye contract was signed. When he signed that contract he had long hair and beard for a movie of Robinson Crusoe which filmed before Goldeneye actually filmed.

It's well known that after Roger Moore did a James Bond parody in Cannonball Run that every Bond actor's contract was updated to prevent that. They could never appear in tuxedos or play similar characters to Bond while doing the role.

I suspect Pierce did not cut his hair or fully shave after Robinson Crosoe when he did this for that reason. In the Casino scene he wears a Tux jacket but no tie. Yet when the Original Detonator was made he looks his normal clean cut look. At that time Timothy Dalton was playing Bond and Brosnan had no reason to think that would change soon.

The most curious thing is in this sequel he acts so much more like Bond than he did in the original. Makes it feel like James Bond is working undercover in the UN. ALtered his appearance and name to hide his real identity!