20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Heavy-Handed and Sluggish Conrad Adaptaion (See 'Sabotage'), February 2, 2005
'Secret Agent' (1996) stars very strong cast -- Bob Hoskins (also ex-producer), Patricia Arquatte, Christian Bale, Gerard Depardieu, Jim Broadbent, Eddie Izzard, and uncredited Robin Williams. The music score is Philip Glass, and the director is Christopher Hampton, who made 'Carrington' before this one. So the film should be better than average classic novel adaptaions, which it isn't. This Conrad adaptation is sluggish, not knowing what it really wants to show.
One great disadventage is that we have seen the adaptation of this Joseph Conrad novel before -- Hitchcock's 'Sabotage' (1936) starring Sylvia Sydney. (Not to be confused with the same director's film named 'Secret Agent.') This version, not perfect to be sure, knows what it is doing, for the master of suspence turned it into a spy story with a thrilling sequence about a bomb hidden in a bag carried by an innocent boy.
However, the new version, though it is more faithful to the original novel, and proud of its great cast, has no sense of what it really is doing. The film opens quite promisingly, with Bob Hoskins' Verloc, a shopkeeper in 1890s London, who actually is a spy in the pay of Russian embassy. He is summoned by the Russain ambassador (very good Eddie Izzard), who tells Verloc to demolish one symbolic building in Britain with a bomb, the building which represents 'time' (you know where).
So far, interesting. But as if to imitate the original novelist's slow moving narrative, the film unwisely introduces many flashbacks that tell us the outcomes of the botched plans. Yes, Conrad uses (intentionally or not, I do not know) the confused narrative that seems to have lost the sense of coherent chronological order (read 'Nostromo'). Hampton not only employs this flashback method once, but twice (!) to show how Mrs. Verloc (miscast Arquatte) meets her fate. So irritating.
The production designs are excellent, the acting is good all in all -- Jim Broadbent as police inspector and Robin Williams as The Professor around whose body a bomb is strapped are memorable among them -- and Philip Glass provides good socre. However, all is wasted or misused, and even Glass's music starts to sound repetitious. The film uses it when there is no need, and that is really annoying.
I like the atmosphere, and I don't think Joseph Conrad is a difficult material to make a film out of it (see 'Victory' made the year before). But Christopher Hampton as director, though good as screenwriter, seems to have killed the material with heavy-handed direction. And its characters that should be more interesting with a smooth story, too.
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13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing Cast-Weak Movie, April 1, 2006
Secret Agent was quite a disappointment, considering the makeup of the cast: Gerard Depardieu, Robin Williams, Bob Hoskins, Christian Bale, and Patricia Arquette among others.
The movie brings to the screen the story of an Englishman, living with his young wife and her retarded brother in the city of London. Things, however, are not as they seem in 19th Century London, with spies, double agents, anarchists and revolutionaries having a field day...
In short, the acting is surprisingly average (!), the setting is pretty good, while the dialogues and the plot are below average.
The movie has that Sherlock Holmes feel about it, but without the "magic," meaning that in the end you are left... numb, and wondering: "Was that it?"
As for the rating, it could have been PG-13.
Though the potential for a great movie was definitely there it fails to take off. A shame really...
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I have never read the book..., January 6, 2000
By A Customer
and I admit I did watch it only for Eddie Izzard's performance as the Russian emmissary, AND I DID find it difficult to stay awake....BUT the performances are wonderful all around. Christian Bale is impressive, Robin Williams is delightful, and Bob Hoskins is charming. This dark drama is engaging, as long as you pour yourself a cup of coffee before settling in to watch it.
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