Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Absolutely Fantastic

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

British agent Joseph Rearden (Paul Newman) meets his superior MacKintosh and Mrs Smith who direct him to steal diamonds from mysterious mail deliveries. He gets arrested after an anonymous tip and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He joins Slade, a KGB mole in British intelligence, in a prison escape. They are drugged and brought to a vast secret organization. Meanwhile, politician Sir George Wheeler (James Mason) rails against the government and MacKintosh informs him of infiltrating the escape organization.The first act is rather stale. John Huston directs the material in a standard manner. The trial is boring. It would have worked much better to start with Newman arriving in prison. His intelligence background should be revealed much later as a shocking twist. The pacing and plotting is rather slow and methodical. It is competently made and it has the great Paul Newman. It's well into the second half when they finally have a car chase. Otherwise, the drama is rather limited.

James Reardon is a member of British Intelligence that is called by his boss MacKintosh, to infiltrate a spy organization. To do so, he puts on an Australian accent and robs a postman. He is convicted and sent to jail. There he is approached by a man who offers to help him escape, claiming to be part of an organization. He is helped, but at the same time he is distrusted. Back in London, MacKintosh is trying to tie a prominent London politician into the Soviet(?) scandal. However, MacKintosh gets too close and is assassinated. Reardon too is in danger. MacKintosh's secretary and daughter (once again?) flies up to Ireland and together they track Soviet spies, but their own lives are at risk. Can they make it?This is the film's tag line: "Only MacKintosh can save them now. And MacKintosh is dead!". Wow...when I first heard that tag line I doubled over laughing. Which is precisely one more laugh than I got from this film. There are so many things wrong without this film, I could make a list....hey I've got enough time! Paul Newman plays a British man playing an Australian, sounding like an American. It is hard to understand what Dominique Sanda is saying, and her line delivery can be awful (ex."No, he was my father".). MacKintosh is in the title, and he is in the film for...five minutes. The plot is deliberately confusing. I had no idea what was going on until I looked it up later. Even then, it made no sense. James Mason's villain is paper thin, and the whole Soviet subplot is just a mess.However, the whole thing manages to break even. It is not the worst film Huston made (ahem, I'm looking at you Phobia), but it is far from his best. The whole cast seems incredibly bored, but no one is more bored than Paul Newman. This may very well be the worst performance I have ever seen Newman give. His rendition is so blank and oh so very boring, that at points you want to scream at him to show some of that famous Newman charm. Perhaps he was all charmed out, he made The Sting the same year. Still, he is one of the most dull and lifeless protagonists I've seen in a long time.However he does not give the worst performance of the film. That honor goes to Dominique Sanda. I loved her in Il Conformista, but her performance her has me doubting my initial affection. She too manages to be effortlessly wooden, but with a French accent! Harry Andrews, who plays MacKintosh is charming, but he gives no idea why anyone would have a whole plot revolve around him. Perhaps the one saving grace here is James Mason, he is good. My god, how I longed for some kind of charm! His character is poorly written, yet he manages to be...average!The script is entirely pointless. It makes no sense, and is unnecessarily confusing. It is fulled with pointless exchanges, and scenes were literally nothing important happens. There is a five minute sequence were Sanda and Newman talk, while they tan. That's it. But perhaps the greatest example of shoddy scripting occurs during the climax. Ahem, **SPOILER ALERT**. Sanda has been kidnapped, and Newman must save her from Mason's evil claws, because....he has to save her. So he goes onto a boat and knocks a sailor on the head, and demands to be taken to her, and then...he is. No chase sequence or exchange of dialog, that's..it. Then the sailor takes him to Sanda, and he talks to James Mason for a while, about...nothing. I'm pretty sure they bring up chess at one point. **END SPOILERS**Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't thrillers supposed to...thrill? If they are, than this is most certainly not a thriller. It may seem as if I am bashing the film relentlessly (I am), but the film is not without it's good points. It has some beautiful cinematography. The chase(?) scene through the foggy Irish lowlands is beautiful, even if it is more landscape than cinematography. The score by Maurice Jarre is also very good. It is cheerful and fun, something that Huston should have payed more attention to during the making of the film.Speaking of Huston, he directed this? After all it contains no directorial input, it could have shot itself. It is so boring and uninterestingly shot, it seemed like Huston just gave directing and let the story play itself out. Bad move. It's plot isn't very remarkable, but it could have been at least a little bit thrilling. Huston said himself that he hated the film, and it isn't hard to see why. It is a tepid, middling entry in Huston's filmography, and one I hope to never revisit again.The MacKintosh Man, 1973, Starring: Paul Newman, Dominique Sanda and James Mason, Directed by John Huston, 6/10 (C-) (This is part of an ongoing project to watch and review every John Huston movie. You can read this and other reviews at http://everyjohnhustonmovie.blogspot.ca/)

Although I have high regard for this movie, and would recommend it without hesitation, "The Mackintosh Man" was not very successful when first released. Surprisingly Huston himself said that "The Mackintosh Man" was the worst movie he ever directed. So who would argue with that? I would for one. For a start, he must have forgotten "The Kremlin Letter" as well as the scenes he directed in "Casino Royale", not to mention "Phobia" but then again, no one ever does do they? "The Mackintosh Man" proves that artists are not necessarily the best judges of their own work.In truth, "The Mackintosh Man" is a taut, smartly directed Cold War thriller. It benefits from very good performances and superb use of locations. It is told in a very straightforward manner, which may be part of the reason it was under-appreciated at the time. Also Watergate was really heating up in 1973, and maybe the public was over spying and the exposure of corruption in high places.Paul Newman's character, Joseph Rearden, is a British secret service agent posing as an Australian who takes part in a plan to have him convicted of robbery and sent to prison. The plan is the brainchild of the head of his department, Mackintosh, played by Harry Andrews – only Mackintosh and his assistant, Mrs Smith, played by Dominique Sanda, are aware of Reardon's mission.Rearden is sent to the same prison as Ronald Slade, played by Ian Bannen, a former British spy who has been exposed as a KGB mole, Part of the plan is to expose an organization that helps prisoners escape and get out of the country. Reardon escapes with Slade, and they both end up in a safe house at an unknown destination. Eventually, Reardon with the help of Mrs Smith, who turns out to be Mackintosh's daughter, discovers that an outspoken member of parliament, Sir George Wheeler, played by James Mason, is behind Slade's escape. After following Wheeler and Slade to Malta, Mrs Smith and Reardon are caught up in a tense standoff that leads to a surprising conclusion.The movie opens out due to great location work. Huston seemed comfortable directing the scenes in England and then Ireland. Of course, the many familiar British and Irish actors gave great conviction to their roles. Malta also provided an unusual backdrop, and was used to good effect at the end of the film.Paul Newman's flippant character struck just the right note, and in the context of the story, he pulled off a passable Australian accent. Dominique Sanda as Mrs Smith was appropriately enigmatic, helped to a degree by her strong French accent.40 years later, the straightforward approach of "The Mackintosh Man" actually works in its favour – avoiding any contemporary trendiness of the 1970's means that it hasn't really dated. It is a good story well told with a cast that seemed to believe in the film even if the director didn't.

***SPOILERS*** Given the assignment by his boss code name Makintosh, Harry Andrews,to go undercover as a convicted mail thief British secret agent Joseph Rearden, Paul Newman, gets himself arrested after mugging a mailman of a package containing 140,000 pound sterling in cut diamonds.Given a 20 year sentence by the courts Rearden is now in position to get in close with convicted communist spy Slade, Ian Banner, who's serving life and find out about the spy ring he's involved in Great Britain and who's the Mr. Big that's running it. It doesn't take long for Rearden to contact a Mr. Brown, Michael Hordern, an inmate at the prison who sets up an elaborate escape plan for both him and Slade to crash out of the joint. What in fact Rearden doesn't quite know is that Slade's outside contacts are wise to him in knowing that he in fact is not a career criminal but an impostor and are ready, after he's in their custody, to beat the truth out of Rearden even if it ends up killing him! ***SPOILERS*** As things soon turn out the very person who can verify that Rearden is in fact working undercover for the British I5, or intelligence department, Makintosh gets run over and later dies from his injuries! This leaves Rearden out in the cold as a convicted criminal on the run from the police as well as the Soviet spy ring that's determent to silence him.The film has Rearden get involved with his contact on the outside Mrs. Smith, Dominique Sanda, who as it turns out is the late Mr. Mackintosh's daughter as well as a member of the British I5.***MAJOR SPOILER*** As for the person who's in fact is running the spy ring he turns out to be a 25 year member of the British Parliment who's about as anti-communist as well super patriotic as one can get; Dubbed by the British press as "Mr. Law and Order" himself Sir George Wheeler played by James, no relations to Perry, Mason! With Wheeler knowing that Rearden is in fact an undercover British Agent makes things even worse for him and Mrs.Smith then they already are! That's until the very end of the film when the tables are turned and the person who has the most to lose in both Wheeler and Slade ending up free turns on them! With fatal results!P.S Paul Newman plays it real cool as undercover British Agent Joseph Rearden and shows off his ability behind the wheel or a car in one of the most bizarre car chases in movie history across the Irish countryside. The car chase finally ends up with the Soviet Agents chasing him crashing off a 200 foot cliff and into the Irish Sea. Newman also shows us what a great swimmer he is in doing in what looked like without a stunt double, at at age 47, all his underwater stunts with his suit tie and shoes on! This was such an amazing aquatic feat on Newman's part that I don't doubt for a moment that even the great Johnny "Tarzan" Weissmuller would have found difficult to duplicate!