Sean Connery

  • Zardoz (1974)

    Zardoz (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, November 2021) For years, Zardoz taunted me from my unseen-DVD shelf. A gift from a definitely mischievous friend, the film’s reputation fascinated and repelled me in equal measure. The early 1970s were not the best years for big-screen Science Fiction: New Hollywood only had a use for SF as a post-apocalyptic backdrop, and if you only had 1970–1976 to pick from, you would quickly understand why mainstream audiences and pop-culture commentators positively hated SF prior to Star Wars: films both naïve and downbeat showing a tiny flash of the genre’s possibilities, seemingly designed either for kids or masochists. Zardoz, seen from one angle, is exactly that. It’s stupid, untrustworthy of its audience, wallowing in brain-dead clichés and stealing everything from other better films. It has Sean Connery in a red leather thong outfit, and it doesn’t take five minutes for the immortal quote “The gun is good. The penis is evil.” to gobsmack any audience. Writer-director-producer John Boorman goes for some truly strange yet bland material here, taking a dull dystopian story and wrapping it up in weird surreal execution. Which ends up being the film’s saving charm, because despite the considerable silliness of its premise, Zardoz is often rescued by its over-the-top ridiculousness or from some genuinely interesting moments of craft. Boorman wasn’t a neophyte even at that early stage of his career, and that often shows in some still-interesting visual effects, oddly compelling scenes, fractured storytelling and audacious bets that don’t quite pay off. The film is bookended by an intriguing opening narration and a rather effective flashforward coda, but what’s in between varies quite a bit. The images are often of the I-can’t-believe-I’m-seeing-this (“Connery, how could you?” only rivals “Charlotte Rampling, how could you?”) and while that doesn’t make Zardoz a good movie, it does lend it an unforgettable quality that does elude many of the better Science Fiction films of that era. Now seen, I’m shifting Zardoz to the seen-DVD shelf… but it’s not done taunting me.

  • Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, Amazon Streaming, August 2021) I remember watching a version of Highlander II in the early-to-mid-1990s and not liking it at all — as a nerdy late-teenager, I was incensed that a sequel to Highlander would so thoroughly corrupt everything that was interesting about the first film. Aliens stranded on Earth rather than mythical immortals in a grand tournament? Blech. Considering that the timeline of my first viewing precedes the release of the reworked “Renegade Version” that recuts material in a (slightly) more coherent way to get rid of the alien factor, I must have watched the original theatrical version. Good news (?): that version isn’t available any more unless you scour old VHS tapes — all releases since 1995 have been of the Renegade Version, and since 2004 of an even-more-fixed Special Edition with a spackling of additional CGI. My second viewing is of the Amazon Prime Special Edition, so it’s probably not an accident if I found the film bad-but-not-that-bad. (Seeing it after a spate of very bad movies further recalibrated matters.)  The aliens may be gone from this cut, but what replaces them is still nigh incomprehensible, with warriors beyond time fighting under a shield protecting the Earth from Ozone depletion. (Obviously, the shield is now useless — Highlander II comes complete with a fight-dictatorship subplot and bright shining skies at the end.)  Christopher Lambert does his best in the lead role, with Sean Connery lending some of his charm to a largely useless character brought back in an even more arbitrary fashion. One thing I had unfortunately forgotten is that Virginia Madsen and her glorious mane of blonde hair also star in the film, adding further interest. The film, even in a special edition, is still a bunch of nonsense that molests a wonderful first film —which is really weird considering that they share the same director Russell Mulcahy, and it does have a few sequences that succeed at getting an appreciative nod. For instance, the scene in which Lambert fights off another immortal and regains his youthful powers is meant to impress and it does, even including a darkly funny “kiss” from an oil tanker. Connery gets to have some fun in a suit shop, and Madsen gets to look good in an otherwise underwritten character. Special Edition or not, Highlander II is more watchable than what I remembered, even at its worst — or it may be that I’m just getting more generous in my advancing age.

  • Just Cause (1995)

    Just Cause (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, May 2021) Often, you don’t realize what you would miss until it’s gone. In retrospect, the 1990s were a golden age for glossy crime thrillers: They were a regular part of the Hollywood release schedule, offered decent roles to big stars, benefited from great production values and featured acceptable plotting (usually adapted from best-selling novels). This is no longer the case — the frequency of releases has dropped in favour of special effects spectacles, production values have dropped and the results have grown more forgettable. A good middle-of-the-road example of what was regularly available in the mid-1990s can be seen in Just Cause: An adaptation of a John Katzenbach novel, featuring a decent cast headlined by Sean Connery (who did a lot of those thrillers during that decade), Laurence Fishburne, Kate Capsha, Ruby Dee and Ed Harris (plus a child role for Scarlett Johansson). It takes place in Florida and doesn’t skimp on the location shooting or the atmosphere, goes for broke on second-half plot twists and director Arne Glimcher keeps it looking gorgeous at all times. Yes, you can criticize the film’s descent from atmospheric character study in the first half to an often-incredible accumulation of plot twists in the second half — but frankly, that’s one of the most endearing aspects of those 1990s twisty thrillers. And I miss it.

  • A Fine Madness (1966)

    A Fine Madness (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2021) There have been weird movies throughout all of Hollywood’s history, but the 1960s brand of weird movies was in a class of its own. So it is that, in A Gentle Madness, we find Sean Connery playing a seriously problematic British poet expatriated to New York — someone who likes to punch people in the face at the slightest provocation, and sleep with any willing woman in his vicinity. Any less charming actor than Connery would make the protagonist look a psychopath — and even with Connery, this is really not a protagonist we can cheer for. Not that those opposing him are any better, what with doctors plotting to perform a surgical procedure that looks a lot like percussive lobotomy despite their assurances that it’s something much better. If you’re going down the checklist of “impulsive violence… indiscriminate sex… lobotomy” and wonder how the execution will make it better, the answer is simple: it doesn’t. It’s a film that leaves viewers aghast, dredging up Connery’s troubled associations with domestic violence and leaving everyone thankful that this project would never be greenlit these days. Connery and some fine location shooting keep things barely tolerable, but never compelling. By the time the film ends with the protagonist hitting a pregnant woman on the street (it’s meant to be accidental and funny and she doesn’t look pregnant at all, but eh), that’s quite enough with it all.

  • Rising Sun (1993)

    Rising Sun (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, March 2021) There are movies worth a look because they are not good, original, timeless or kind-hearted. Rising Sun is one of those. Adapted from a typically hysterical Michael Crichton novel published the previous year, it shamelessly exploits the anti-Japanese rhetoric of the time, at a point where Americans were convinced that the Japan Inc. juggernaut was unstoppable — that it would gobble up companies, dominate manufacturing, steal secrets, control politics and make Washington regret that unfortunate Hiroshima/Nagasaki business. There’s an instructive history lesson in watching Rising Sun’s characters ponder the inscrutable yet all-powerful ways the Japanese are poised to rule, and the reality of what happened later on — enough to make you look twice at any similar prediction made today. But so it goes — Rising Sun is, from its first moments onward, a film made to fan fears. Made in the form of a buddy crime thriller, it features an incredibly American cop (Wesley Snipes, not yet full of himself) paired with a veteran ex-cop (late-career Sean Connery in a rather good interpretation of a bad role) with a deep knowledge of Japanese culture and norms. Connery plays the voice of authority here, confidently instructing us in how exactly the Japanese escape American norms and laws in their all-conquering path. It all feels ridiculous thirty years later, but the point it — many people believed it, and believed it for a long time. The rest of the film is slightly better once it lays off the xenophobia and embraces its familiar nature as a buddy-cop techno-thriller: in keeping with its source novel, Rising Sun peeks at some of the gee-whiz technology of the time (such as real-time surveillance video editing) and occasionally scores a few better moments when it focuses on suspense sequences rather than anti-Japanese racism. (It feebly attempts to distance itself from racism by featuring “good” Japanese characters and a Caucasian villain… but nobody’s fooled.)  Tia Carrere and Steve Buscemi have short appearances. By itself it’s not a very good film — its xenophobia is embarrassing, and so is the way it’s integral to the plot. But the way the film has aged poorly (That other Michael Crichton film of 1993 was… Jurassic Park) should be a hard-hitting lesson to all — racism is bad for all sorts of reasons, one of the longest-lasting of them being how it just makes you look stupid to later generations.

  • The Wind and the Lion (1975)

    The Wind and the Lion (1975)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) A tale of a president and an outlaw, The Wind and the Lion is unconventional—an adventure story about the rescue of a western woman from the Moroccan rebel who kidnapped her, but also a character portrait of that cultured rebel (played by Sean Connery) but also, half a world away, of Teddy Roosevelt in his eccentric glory, as the kidnapping hopes to upset geopolitics. Clearly a passion project from writer-director John Milius, this adaptation of the 1904 Perdicaris affair is deeply unconventional and, at times, a bit messy. My interest varied from scene to scene—while Connery is his usual compelling self, his storyline is often far too lengthy to be wholly interesting. Meanwhile, I couldn’t get enough of Brian Keith’s brilliantly oddball Theodore Roosevelt as he lives and reacts to the developing situation: much of his behaviour is of public records, but it’s fun to see it portrayed on-screen. The reconstitution benefits from a decent budget, and the film does have a few marquee sequences—perhaps most interesting being a scene in which troops march down the streets of Tangiers and intervene in the conflict in a rather surprising fashion. Still, the result feels quite uneven, with high highs and dull lows. The Wind and the Lion is more interesting than usual, but not necessarily successful.

  • The Anderson Tapes (1971)

    The Anderson Tapes (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) At its core, The Anderson Tapes can be summarized as a heist film—during the course of the story, an ex-con recruits a team to plan a large-scale robbery of an upper-class Manhattan apartment adjacent to Central Park. It takes us through the conception, the planning, the execution of the robbery, as well as its bloody aftermath. But as the computer-fond opening credits title font suggests, there’s a whole new wrapping around this noirish kind of plot: The presence of surveillance cameras, TV screens, computers and consumer electronics. Throughout the film (supported by beepeetee-doo computer noises), our protagonists are watched, recorded and itemized by various law enforcement and surveillance outfits. The Anderson Tapes’ big irony, of course, is that none of this surveillance actually works to prevent the robbery—each unit being concentrated on their own purposes, they completely miss the pieces being assembled in front of their eyes. Ultimately, it’s not surveillance that defeats the robbers but a ham radio and the power of concerted citizens half a world away. In the hand of directory Sidney Lumet, this proto-technothriller adapted from the Lawrence Sanders novel also offers plenty of touches that round out a suspense film: laughs, chills, thrills and action are dolled out in careful fashion, with surprisingly strong character work (including a very funny turn by veteran actress Judith Lowry) and a dependably likable turn by Sean Connery as the lead. The other big casting surprise here is a tall but very young-looking Christopher Walken in his first film role. What was a solid film upon release is now greatly enhanced for modern viewers by seeing then-primitive but scary technology being lavished with attention, and well-observed details to make it all credible. In that, The Anderson Tapes is clearly from the same director who later did Dog Day Afternoon and similarly raised a generic premise into something far more interesting.

  • The Hill (1965)

    The Hill (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) Now here’s something as merciless as it’s interesting—a WW2 film in which the heroes are British soldiers and the villain is… the British Army. Taking place at a military prison camp in which punishment is delivered to break the prisoners, The Hill is a film that goes against undeserved authority, against military leadership, against the idea that armies are all perfectly aligned against the enemy. Sean Connery stars as one of five new prisoners introduced to the titular Hill—a massive stack of rock and sand used to torture prisoners under the blazing Saharan sun. Our protagonist can’t stand the abuse inflicted by the camp’s leader, but fighting back is tricky in a military context. It’s all crisply directed by Sidney Lumet, who ably portrays the unrelenting heat and the claustrophobia of having nowhere to go. The opening cleanly establishes the area, and the ending is substantially bleaker than expected. Connery is very, very good here, consciously shedding his James Bond image in an attempt to avoid typecasting. Be sure to turn on the subtitles, as some of the dialogue is difficult to hear. More a prison film than a war movie, The Hill is nonetheless a successful drama.

  • Robin and Marian (1976)

    Robin and Marian (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) There is a strong streak of melancholy running through Robin and Marian, a story about the last days of Robin Hood and Maid Marian. A romantic drama blended with a bit of medieval thrills, it’s a film about heroic icons aging into legend—he is back from a punishing crusade; she is now a nun. It’s also, perhaps more significantly for film buffs, a strange and intriguing paring between two screen legends: Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn (in her first film in nine years). Connery looks like himself with the graying beard, but there’s something truly uncanny in seeing Hepburn with curly hair (and I say this as someone who usually finds nothing wrong at all with curly hair). But none of it is as surprising as a tragic climax that ties in merciful death for nearly everyone—this is meant as romantic tragedy, capping one last passionate moment between two characters that never made it work. As such, it does feel like the kind of film that could only be made in the New Hollywood era—a film that takes a chainsaw to a myth with one final tragic story. I didn’t like Robin and Marian all that much—but I have to admire its audacity.

  • Dragonheart (1996)

    Dragonheart (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, On TV, January 2020) I first saw Dragonheart in theatres on its opening weekend, and twenty-five years later, this is clearly a different time for movies. Most strikingly, circa-2020 viewers have been blessed by a long list of very convincing CGI characters over the past two decades… no wonder if this early-CGI creation feels creaky. But Dragonheart was a pioneer in that space, and the thrill of seeing an ILM-created dragon emote and speak with Sean Connery’s voice back in 1996 has inevitably abated in 2020. Still, there’s a bit more to Dragonheart than a talking CGI dragon, and the film does manage to establish itself as an average medieval fantastic adventure. Under Rob Cohen’s direction, it does suffer a bit from less-than-convincing battle sequences (clearly, the money went to the CGI dragon), but redeems itself through acceptable comic sequences (including a prolonged standoff between a knight and a dragon) and a sombre finale. While I’d watch Dina Meyer wearing red curls in nearly anything, the film does belong to Dennis Quaid as a knight who’s not above a bit of film-flammery, with some assistance from David Thewlis and Pete Postlethwaite. While Dragonheart doesn’t quite have what it takes to be a good or great movie (it’s a mis-mash of high and low material, especially at the script level—the film’s production history is a horror show of dramatically lowered ambitions and the studio/director is probably to blame) but I can understand its cult popularity even now.

  • The Name of the Rose (1986)

    The Name of the Rose (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2019) It’s been decades since I’ve read Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose and I certainly didn’t understand much of it at the time—it’s the kind of novel with so much depth that it obscures its own narrative strengths through an excess of detail. Fortunately, writer-director Jean-Jacques Annaud’s film adaptation wisely knows what to keep and what to simplify. The result is a surprisingly engaging story of murder, inquisition, books, sex, and hidden labyrinths set in a fourteenth-century monastery … featuring a medieval version of Sherlock Holmes. Sean Connery is splendid as the protagonist, a contemporary mind stuck in the dark ages, whose gravelly wisdom only breaks into giddiness within a library. (Ah, a character after my own heart!)  A still-impressive support cast rounds The Name of the Rose, with Michael Lonsdale and F. Murray Abraham being their usual selves, and early but substantial roles for both Christian Slater and Ron Perlman. Still, it’s the plot that takes centre stage, what with a murder investigation conducted very much against the leaders of the abbey, and a merciless inquisitor taking matters in his own hands. It’s a heady mixture, and the film never gets any better than when the characters break into a hidden library broken up in a maze. Annaud may have stripped much of the extraneous meta-semiotic material, but enough cleverness remains to make The Name of the Rose a superior thriller—more ambitious, decidedly more atmospheric and certainly more interesting than most.

  • First Knight (1995)

    First Knight (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, November 2018) I’m not sure I completely accept Richard Gere as dashing young knight Lancelot trying to win over the queen (Julia Ormond) from King Arthur (Sean Connery). But that’s First Knight for you. The film makes a big deal out of the 35-year age difference between Ormond and Connery, but not so much of the 16-year difference between Gere and Ormond. (But that’s been Hollywood’s idea of an acceptable age range ever since the first movie moguls hit their mid-thirties.) More significant is the film’s overall lack of energy or reason to care: It’s, by design, an unsatisfying premise—who dares have Richard Gere best Sean Connery!?—and the limp execution from Jerry Zucker (better known for comedies) doesn’t do much to help. Even the high points, such as a ridiculously convoluted obstacle course, don’t quite manage to make the film come alive. The treatment of the Arthurian myth is realistic, but for a hollywoodian ideal of realism that seems like an uncomfortable compromise. I probably would have liked the film if I actually cared more about reinterpreting the Arthurian myth … but I don’t. First Knight is also severely harmed by the mid-1990s wave of far better historical movies set around the British Isles, along the lines of Braveheart or (better yet) Rob Roy. The result is not terrible, but neither is it particularly good. Maybe worth a watch for fans of Connery, Ormond or Gere even if their casting is sometimes dubious.

  • A Bridge Too Far (1977)

    A Bridge Too Far (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2018) Watching A Bridge Too Far, I was struck at how closely the film initially seemed to follow the template of The Longest Day: A lengthy WW2 drama covering both sides of the war, with a lavish re-creation of the fighting and an ensemble cast of superstars including Sean Connery, adapted from a non-fiction book by Cornelius Ryan. But the comparisons only go so far, especially as the movie advances and the military operation goes sour. It’s certainly worth noting that a significant cultural shift happened in-between 1964’s The Longest Day and 1977’s A Bridge Too Far: The Vietnam War did much to affect the public perception of war and audiences having digested MASH and Catch-22 and Kelly’s Heroes in 1970 alone were far more willing to embrace a film about an unsuccessful operation. (Even A Bridge Too Far’s opening narration is a bit off-kilter, suggesting a level of built-in cynicism that would have been unheard of fifteen years earlier.) While there are plenty of enjoyable wartime heroics in A Bridge Too Far, mistakes in planning, insufficient intelligence, bad communications and plain old happenstance all contribute to a costly failure. Still, if the events described by the film may be frustrating to watch, the film itself is entertaining enough. The historical re-creation of the massive airdrops is impressive, the massive explosions are numerous and the sheer number of recognizable actors is also notable. Connery gets a great character to play, but there are equally interesting moments for Michael Caine, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman and even Anthony Hopkins in a very early role. The film does not describe a particularly glorious moment for the allied forces, but that may add to the sense of discovery while watching it—I’m a modest WW2 buff thanks to having read many histories of the era as a teenager, but I had either not learned or forgotten much of Operation Garden Market until A Bridge Too Far refreshed my mind. It’s quite a spectacle, and it’s not quite as well-known as other WW2 movies. In any case, it’s worth a watch if the subject matter interests you.

  • Never Say Never Again (1983)

    Never Say Never Again (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On DVD, October 2018) There aren’t that many good creative reasons for Never Say Never Again to exist. It’s a movie that owes its existence to a rift between the original James Bond movie creators, resulting in the rights to the Thunderball story and Spectre as a plot element being given to someone other than Eon Productions. Money is a powerful motivator, and so we ended up with a legal James Bond movie not made by the usual Bond people, but somehow starring Sean Connery in one last go at the character, graying temples and all. The story itself is a blatant remake of Thunderball, not only with stolen nuclear weapons being used as a plot driver, but with similar narrative stops at a health clinic and fancy yacht, not to mention similar character names. While the film’s pacing sharply improves upon Thunderball-era Bond, most of the “updates” affirm the early-eighties origins of the film more than anything else—there’s a particularly funny sequence involving Bond battling it out with the villain not on the casino table, but in a video game with deadly controls. That part really hasn’t aged well. But what did age well is Connery himself—there’s a real treat in seeing him, obviously older, taking up the character once more. Speaking of aging well, it’s also fun to see Kim Basinger in an early role (sheer aerobics jumpsuit and all), but it’s a reminder that she looks just as fine today than back then—and she’s now a far better actress too. This being said, Barbara Carrera is often more striking than Basinger, with a villainess role that she embraces with a relish rarely seen from other Bond girls. Klaus Maria Brandauer is not bad as the film’s overall villain, and Rowan Atkinson shows up in a small bumbling role. While Bond’s sexual conquests are still dodgy, they do feel like a step up from the original Thunderball, and the film is notable for suggesting that Bond will live happily ever after in a committed relationship. It ends up being a decent swan song for Connery, far better than the ludicrous Diamonds are Forever. While Never Say Never Again is not part of the official Bond continuity (and probably won’t ever be, even if the film’s rights are now owned by MGM) it does fit in a Bond completist’s viewing order: It’s not a great Bond, maybe not even a good Bond, but it’s worth a look especially if you’re going through the entire series.

  • Time Bandits (1980)

    Time Bandits (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2018) I really expected Time Bandits to be more fun than it is—after all, it’s a Terry Gilliam production, a visually inventive kid’s-fantasy film that seems to have stuck a whole generation of viewers. (But not me the first time around—I was slightly too young.) Alas, and this is not really the film’s fault as much as the evolving industry standard, there has been an explosion of kids-fantasy movies since then, each showing new thrills, fancier special effects and more fluid directing. For all of the considerable creative efforts made in Time Bandits’ production, it definitely looks dated today—rigid directing constrained by special-effects requirements, with obvious soundstage backdrops and overdone acting. I did like quite a bit—the Lego pieces in the climactic sequence are fun, and there are some visually arresting sequences. Plus, hey, Sean Connery. Alas, the appeal of the film stayed limited, not quite strong enough from a story perspective to transcend its production limitations. Time Bandits fans should rest easy, though—I’m writing essentially the same review for all sorts of other kids-fantasy films of the early eighties, from Time Bandits to The Neverending Story to Erik the Viking. Time moves on, and for views without an initial attachment to the film at their moment of release, it can be an uphill climb to discover them today with all of their shortcomings.