john_burke100

Fine acting, as the cast, including Atkins and West who were new to me-try hard to persuade the viewer that they're impersonating real people in something resembling the real world. The opening sequence is smart and skillful, and raised my hopes for the rest--I mean, how can you go wrong with Stanley Tucci and David Tennant? Yet the writers manage it. OK, I'll suspend my disbelief but I don't have enough rope to suspend it as high as this script, which piles up the implausibilities as it goes on, demands. The cast try this impossible assignment, and no blame to them for failing. Wait: why not a series with Tucci's and Atkins' characters playing private eyes? "Dillon and Grieff, Affordable Investigators: We never leave the office!"

Pale, passionless knockoff of "Body Heat." Pedestrian dialog, off-the-rack direction, dutiful acting in forgettable roles. Charles Dance is badly miscast as a Southern gentleman, and poor Benicio del Toro just stands around tossing lines at Ed Haris so Ed can deliver a comeback. If this picture made any money, Lawrence Kasdan should sue.

I saw this about 1959 at the Cinema Guild theater in Berkeley where Pauline Kael programmed it, then in the 80s on a terrible VHS tape, and haven't been able to find it since. Someone suggested a Hollywood remake; I can think of a lot of ways for that to work out badly, but if it leads to making the original available again, I'm for it. As others here have said, it's very funny, farce but with a pro-small-town, anti-corporate bite, and a lead actor, the tiny, super-energetic Sinoël, cackling "Voyage surprise!" to lure customers to his fanciful trip.