Best movie ever!

An Exercise In Nonsense

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The Saint is a Robin Hood type criminal character devised by Leslie Charteris a Chinese Singaporean. The Saint had a series of short films in the 1940s however made it big when Roger Moore portrayed him for a television series in the 1960s that became an international hit.In this big budget film starring Val Kilmer we have an attempt to re- invent the character. As a homage to Charteris we have scenes of him as a boy in a Catholic boarding school in the Far East. In the present day he is a criminal for hire who steals secrets and formulas and uses aliases that are Catholic Saints and is a master of disguise.The Saint is hired by a Russian businessman and aspiring politician to get a secret cold fusion formula from a young scientist played by Elisabeth Shue. You never for a moment buy Shue as a brilliant scientist and Kilmer falls for her and finds out that he needs to outwit the Russians and save the Russian Premiere as well as saving Shue. The story is all over the place and Shue's gut feeling that her formula is right without any scientific basis is laughable. There is good chemistry between Kilmer and Shue but the film itself is up and down in tempo and Kilmer never behaves like The Saint we know from the TV series.Ultimately Kilmer seems to be enjoying himself trying different accents but he never comes across The Saint which is the film's biggest failing.

The Saint is a pleasantly surprising film. A lot different from the Roger Moore TV series, it sort of follows the Brosnan Bonds in being a stylish actioner with a slightly absurd plot. Yet it's a very entertaining film with many great things about it. The plot involves Simon Templar who is a master a thief, being able to outsmart the law with unique disguises and accents. He is hired by the Russian Mafia to steal a formula for cold fusion energy from scientist Emma Russell. But Russell intelligence and beauty makes Templar begin to develop feelings for her that he can't walk away from. He decides to help her and must work out the formula before the Russians do. Though the plot is a bit silly, it is actually pretty smart in many places and it never becomes boring. As said it works like one of the more far-fetched Bond films in that it is rather suspect but it doesn't really matter because it is so entertaining, whilst the romantic side keeps things nicely grounded.The cast is impressive. Val Kilmer is terrific as Templar managing to play the smart spy who finds his softer side and he has the charisma to carry it off. Kilmer does a brilliant job at doing different accents and changing appearance too. Elisabeth Shue is excellent as Emma Russell, making her likable and tough but with complexity and issues. Rade Serbedzija makes an effect villain as the slimy and power hungry Tretiak. Valeriy Nikolaev was a little dull as his son, but still believable and did well in the action set pieces. The British veteran Michael Byrne was fantastic as always as Tretiak's adviser. Both Alun Armstrong and Charlotte Cornwell did solid jobs as inspectors on Templar's trail. Though the plot is iffy, nearly everything else is done quite competently. The visual tone that the film goes for is very stylish, the scenes of Russia and Britain look fantastic. The action scenes are also done in a great way, though it doesn't happen too often when it does it is nicely effective. The music is simply superb, the score by Graeme Revell has a cool action tone to it but is also very beautiful, the main theme and 'Love Theme' are both superb. The use of more contemporary music at times was also a smart decision. The most effective thing about the film is the relationship between Templar and Russell. Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue have amazing chemistry as a lot of the time you can easily forget they are acting it's so natural. This side of the story helps make it far more interesting that your average action film because you actually care about what these people go through. It's also nice that there's not an overload of action, as the film does a good job of letting the drama tell the story. Overall The Saint offers a refreshing balance of drama, action and character development.

"You know, wearing that black suit and waving a big Japanese sword around does not make you the Saint.""Just play your part." Henry mumbled through the face cover waving his Katana around. He knew it was a Katana because he knew that kind of thing from the comics. Unlike Kristl who was illiterate because she had never read comics as far as he knew."And what part was that again?""You are the Russian lesbian who just caught me red handed while stealing a formula from your masters safe. It is the one that changes water into vodka. Just say something with that foreign accent of yours.""I don't play Russians very well. I am Austrian, that makes it a German accent, not a Russian one. And what is with the lesbian stuff all the time?" Kristl remarked."Well, your hair practically shouts lesbian." Henry said."What is with the hair? Why does it make me look lesbian?""It is shaved but for long hair on top and you painted it black and white, that hairstyle went out of fashion two decades ago. Only women pretending to be men would want to look like that." Henry said."I hate you!" Krisl fumed."Good, you can play the bad ass Russian better." Henry smiled and crouched in a fighting stance.Kristl face palmed and then said,"You are Simon Templar. An English gentleman thief. He never uses swords like that! Perhaps a saber or a cane, but not a weapon like that. Something stylish and English. You know: Roger Moore? Gentleman, under cooled humor, stiff upper lip, Rolls Royce.?""Yeah, yeah. Get on with it.""Oh god, you just don't look at all like him, nor speak like him, nor have the same humor, nor have the style. You are so not Simon Templar." Kristl groaned, "Just like Val Kilmer?" Henry said."Yeah, just like him." Kristl."Well, it would have not mattered to me, but it's not even an exciting movie." Henry put down the sword and removed his mask to reveal a grin."The action sequences are plain boring. People shooting at him seem to miss even at point blank.""It's pretty bad on any level." Kristl,"The whole romantic bit is so cringe worthy. And how the Russians are portrayed like a bunch of money grabbers. It was probably meant to be funny.""You know that they considered having Kurt Russell play James Bond at the time?""Oh? You mean Kurt -Snake Plissken- Russell? " Said Kristl."The grumpy anti hero from Escape From New York?" Kristl considered that for a minute."It is a joke." Henry laughed."He would have made a better Bond that Kilmer makes a Saint" Kristl said."It wasn't Kurt Russell they considered, it was Mel Gibson."

I'm a massive fan of all things Saintly. I have read all the Saint books, I own and have seen all the old RKO Saint movies from the 30's, 40's and 50's with Louis Hayward, George Sanders and Hugh Sinclair and own all the TV episodes from the 60's & 70's with Roger Moore & Ian Ogilvy. Only a few Saint items elude me. The very hard to find Simon Dutton Saint adventures from the late 80's, the Andrew Clarke one off TV Movie from 1987, the old radio shows from he 40's and 50's and the forgettable French movies of the 60's.Because of this, I was very wary about the Val Kilmer movie featuring the halo'd character of Simon Templar despite having Saint legend Robert S. Baker as executive producer. My fears were not without foundation.The character of Simon Templar as originally written by creator Leslie Charteris is an English Gentleman adventurer thief, he is known by reputation as a criminal with morals. He despises injustice, never preys on the innocent and only steals from people he refers to as the ungodly who have made their ill gotten gains by riding rough shod over anyone and everything. In this movie we have an American Templar (1st mistake), who commits high tech robberies for extremely large sums on behalf of people who are morally bankrupt (2nd mistake). In fact Kilmer's portrayal of Simon Templar is as far removed from Charteris's creation and the character portrayed so well by Moore, Ogilvy and Sanders you cannot even recognise him as being the same person.Having said that it was SO easy to forget that this was even a Saint movie. As far as I'm concerned it was just a wonderful exciting movie about an American cyber criminal on the run from the Russian Mafia who falls in love with an American physicist. The action is gripping the plot engaging and the acting superb, apart from a few VERY sickly scenes between Kilmer and Shue. I'm all for romance between characters but......I did enjoy it but apart from the title it is in no way, shape or form, a Saint Movie. That was the producers 3rd and biggest mistake. By calling it a Saint movie, they were already on the back foot as expectations were no doubt going to be high especially from die hard Saint fans like myself. Making the Saint an American is a BIG no no. having the Saint happily work for criminals is another.If they had removed all reference to The Saint character from the story, I could be easily reviewing one of the best movies of the '90's. Kilmer's Character was more akin to Ethan Hunt than anything you would ever find in a Charteris book. However, Elizabeth Shue is GORGEOUS and I really did enjoy this movie very much for what it was. If you can forget it's a supposed to be a Saint movie then I'm sure you will too.Enjoy!!!