I had no idea THE SAINT (2017) existed until this blog post at Atomic Junk Shop. Unlike the 1997 Val Kilmer film, this one clearly knows the Leslie Charteris source material and makes good use of it.
Adam Rayner’s Simon Templar is Charteris’ “Robin Hood of Modern Crime,” shown in the opening scenes thwarting a terrorist scheme to buy a nuke, stealing the gold bullion intended for the seller and donating it to charity. He’s helped at a distance by his Woman in the Chair, Patricia Holm (Eliza Dushku), a tech whiz who we learn later in the story can fight like hell too.
This was originally conceived as a TV pilot which is why there’s so many loose ends such as the implication Simon’s family are literal Knights Templar engaged in a war with the mysterious “Brotherhood,” the multiple cops on Simon’s trail and Patricia and Simon not having done it yet. Like John Carter it’s better than I ever expected — perhaps its failure to launch a series is a sign that Simon Templar remains a “dad hero.” “I didn’t cheat, father — I stole.”
What if Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night had taken place in occupied Paris? That’s my log-line description of Truffaut’s most successful film (critically and commercially), THE LAST METRO (1980). Catherine Deneuve is an actor trying to keep the theater open (Parisians under Vichy flocked to movies and theater as an escape from their troubles) despite her Jewish playwright/director husband having fled the city. She can’t let anyone know that far from fleeing he’s holed up in the basement and giving directorial notes on the play she’s trying to stage.
Enter Gerard Depardieu, at the time known for leather-jacketed tough-guy characters on screen (and according to one commentary track, dismissing Truffaut’s film’s as mediocre), the play’s new leading man and a notorious lech. In an American WW II film the focus would be on getting the man in the basement to safety; this film devotes as much screen time to the struggles to get the play on, from Deneuve/Depardieu friction (the idea of them as lovers comes too out of the blue for me) to the anti-semitic critic watching it like a hawk. While the ending doesn’t work (I may like it better if I rewatch some day) this is overall an excellent, very Truffaut film. It might double-bill well with Jack Benny’s To Be or Not To Be as another story of actors vs. fascists. “I’m trying to feel Jewish.”
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