Reviews

This movie seems to be almost completely unknown, which is unfortunate as it's a pretty good movie, at least if you like thought-provoking movies about international current events.

I chanced upon this movie by accident. I found it for sale on DVD at a flea market for $3 and took a chance and bought it. When I tried to read about it on IMDb I found only three comments! And at Amazon.com there were no reviews at all.

Let's start with the basic facts. This is a made-for-TV movie from 1988. The original title was "Terrorist on Trial: The United States vs. Salim Ajami". It is being sold on DVD in the USA, the UK, Scandinavia and perhaps elsewhere as "Hostile Witness", and in Australia as "In the Hands of the Enemy". The Scandinavian version that I watched was 125 minutes (too long), while the version being sold in the USA is apparently 100 minutes.

The story is about a Palestinian terrorist named Salim Ajami (Robert Davi) who has been kidnapped in Beirut by American Special Forces personnel and transported to the USA to stand trial for the murder of four American tourists in Spain.

The movie starts with Salim Ajami's arrival in the USA. We see discussions at the Justice Department and the recruitment of a defense lawyer (Ron Leibman) and a prosecution attorney (Sam Waterston). We follow both sides as they prepare for the trial. Then the movie becomes a courtroom drama, and finally the verdict is handed down.

This is not typical light entertainment, and many people may consider it to be boring.

There are many thought-provoking ideas being considered here.

• Does the United States have the right to kidnap a suspected criminal in another country and bring him/her to the USA to stand trial? (What if Danish police kidnapped an American in Los Angeles and brought him to Copenhagen to stand trial?)

• When is a terrorist a terrorist, and when is he a soldier or a freedom-fighter? (Or an "insurgent" or an "enemy combatant" to use the current labels?)

• Was dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in Japan in the Second World War an act of terrorism?

• What can explain the mentality of the Middle East activists who kill innocent people and expect that this will aid their cause?

It is especially this last question that the movie tries to explore. On one hand it is made obvious that Salim Ajami is responsible for unspeakable acts of terrorism, killing and injuring innocent American tourists. On the other hand Salim Ajami comes across as intelligent and articulate, maintaining that he is a soldier who is fighting using a new kind of warfare.

The movie does a fairly good job of giving the viewer the information that allows us to understand Salim Ajami, although not accepting his deeds. This is provided by Salim Ajami's own testimony about the conditions in the Palestinian refugee camps, by descriptions of how Western military operations have killed many Arab civilians, and by the explanations of an Iranian living in the USA about how Arab resentment towards Western colonialism makes any Arab fighter a hero.

This movie was made almost 20 years ago at a time when most people in the West had almost no knowledge of Middle East affairs. As such it was fairly daring. Today we have much more knowledge and many more opinions due to the Gulf War, the 9/11-2001 terrorist attacks, the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the establishment of the Guantánamo Bay detainment camp and the on-going Iraq War.

Still, even though it is dated it is a pretty good movie for those who like thought-provoking stories that attempt to explain the terrorist mentality. The acting and direction is good and the story is believable.

Rennie Petersen

To start with the positive things, "Suspicious Agenda" is based on a good story idea. Someone is taking the law into his own hands and killing criminals who have somehow avoided being imprisoned due to loopholes in the justice system. A police captain forms a special task force of six police detectives to find the killer, and we see what happens as this task force goes to work.

However, in reality the police captain is convinced that the vigilante killer must be a policeman, and he has selected the six detectives on the police force with the most serious discipline problems. The captain is assuming that the killer is one of these six detectives, and that he will soon make a mistake and reveal himself.

Very nice story idea.

Unfortunately, the style of the movie is constantly way over the top, and this spoils any enjoyment.

The action is over the top and the situations are totally unrealistic. Nobody does anything calmly and intelligently, instead everyone is constantly in a state of high excitement and the characters are always yelling at each other and picking fights with each other and acting like unruly kindergarten children.

Unless you like a movie where everything is exaggerated and unrealistic I'm recommending that you give "Suspicious Agenda" a pass.

Rennie Petersen

I'm assuming the reader of this review has read the book so a synopsis of the plot and a list of the main characters are not necessary.

The big question prior to the release of this movie was how would Ron Howard tackle the job? Especially since he had a guaranteed box-office success no matter what he did, considering the success of the book and the controversy surrounding it.

Ron Howard could have made a bland action flick that avoided the controversial religious claims, or he could have made a romantic comedy with a stupid French policeman, or he could have cut the number of locations and codes by 50%, or he could have done all sorts of things.

In fact, Ron Howard took the book seriously, and the movie, although not following the book slavishly, does include most of the controversial claims from the book. I think he did the right thing and that the movie has a more memorable impact as a result.

Just about everyone has noted that the movie is rather long (2 1/2 hours) and contains a lot of dialog. But this is a direct consequence of taking the book seriously.

The movie is well-made, the actors (especially Ian McKellen) all do a good job, the action scenes are exciting, the locations are beautifully photographed, and you leave the cinema feeling that you got your money's worth. This is especially true if you disliked the book because of the religious claims and went to see the movie to get your feeling of outrage about these claims confirmed.

Anyway, I liked the movie. I was even pleased to see that Ron Howard corrected one of the two errors that Dan Brown made regarding the architecture of the Louvre.

Rennie Petersen

"Legal Eagles" is supposed to be a comedy. We're supposed to find the characters played by Robert Redford and Debra Winger to be amusing, their acrimonious relationship to be hilarious, and the way that they end up being partners despite all of the gibes to be romantically satisfying.

The problem is that the movie is too dumb to be taken seriously, and thus too dumb to be funny.

Briefly, the story takes place in New York. Robert Redford is an assistant District Attorney about to be promoted to be the DA. Debra Winger is a defense attorney, and Daryl Hannah is a young woman with emotional problems, and is Debra Winger's client. The plot involves a fire 20 years ago, when Daryl Hannah was eight, a fire that killed her artist father and purportedly destroyed a large number of his paintings. This experience left Daryl Hannah traumatized, but all is not as it seems, and now, 20 years later, Daryl Hannah is first accused of attempted theft and later of murder.

Unfortunately, the plot involves many elements that simply don't make sense. I won't go into detail, but Roger Ebert does a good job of listing four different major things that make the plot completely unbelievable.

As well as the story being dumb I found some of the scenes that were supposed to be funny to be anything but.

For example, Robert Redford is a weekend father to a teenage daughter. At one point his ex-wife threatens to go to court to prevent him from seeing their daughter. Robert Redford makes a telephone call to his ex-wife's home and starts an angry monologue of threats about how he'll take her apart in court. Then he realizes that he's actually talking to his daughter! This mistake is apparently supposed to be hilarious. Ha, ha.

In another scene Robert Redford and Debra Winger are together and see one of the bad guys. Robert Redford takes off on foot to try to catch him. Debra Winger, who doesn't know how to drive a car, feels it necessary for her to jump into Robert Redford's car and try to follow him. She makes a wrong turn and finds herself going the wrong way into traffic on a wide heavily trafficked street. There follows one minute of her frantically dodging cars at the last moment. Very funny. Ha, ha, ha.

This movie could have been a fairly good romantic thriller if they had fixed the plot and not tried to be a comedy. But the dumb plot and the unfunny attempts at comedy make it a complete waste of time.

Rennie Petersen

I had expected to like this movie better than I did. After all, I live in Denmark, and "Strings" was created by a Danish Director and the production company behind it is to a large extent Danish. Furthermore, I had read several positive articles and reviews about the movie before seeing it.

The whole concept is very interesting. We are watching a puppet movie, but not one where the puppets represent people. Well, yes, they do in a way, but at the same time the puppets represent puppets.

The many strings that go from the various body parts of the puppets and disappear up into the heavens play a major role in the story. A puppet cannot move past any obstacle above his/her head that prevents the strings from passing. To kill a puppet you cut the "head string", and a new baby puppet is "born" when a new head string is attached to his/her head.

Maybe it's my background as an engineer that makes me start to think of all the implications of these concepts. Instead of concentrating on the beautiful photography and the metaphorical side of the story (we, as humans, also have "strings" that put limitations on our freedom of movement), I'm thinking about the architectural implications, etc.

The story itself is not particularly innovative. A king dies, the king's evil brother tricks the king's son into going on a mission in preparation to waging war on the neighboring puppets, the son slowly but surely determines the truth, he also falls in love, and eventually peace is restored to the land. If it weren't for the interesting puppet-contra-human aspects it would be rather boring.

This is not a movie for children, because children see the story as boring and aren't able to grasp the interesting repercussions of the fact that these beings are puppets and not people.

As for adults, I'm sure that many will find the movie innovative and artistic and intellectually stimulating. But then there are the people like me who try to analyze the concept to death, and find it hard to concentrate on the story, while not being particularly impressed by the story.

Rennie Petersen

I'm sorry, I just couldn't like this movie, even though I wanted to. As a long-time fan of the Modesty Blaise books and comic strips I was really hoping that they had finally gotten it right, but my conclusion is that once again they've blown it.

What worries me especially is that poor sales of this movie may result in Miramax deciding to drop the idea of making big-budget Modesty movies based on the books. And by the time Miramax's license expires ("My Name is Modesty" was primarily made to allow Miramax to hold on to the license) it may be too late. We die-hard Modesty fans are getting up in years and movie studios don't make movies for an intended audience who lives in old folks homes.

What was wrong with "My Name is Modesty"? Primarily two things: the leading character was poorly cast and the script was embarrassingly bad.

Alexandra Staden was unable to project the personality or presence necessary to be Modesty. An actress was needed who could make you feel that here was a person who had incredible self-assurance and self-control, and Alexandra Staden just didn't cut it.

On top of that, Alexandra Staden didn't have the physique to be Modesty. Nor, in my opinion (but this is very subjective), the attractive good looks.

The story was also very poor. They decided that they wanted some kind of prequel movie where Modesty would be introduced. What they came up with was a film with a very contrived here-and-now story that provided a vehicle for a large number of flashbacks to Modesty's past. But neither the story of Modesty's background nor the here-and-now story work very well.

In the background story the most important person is Lob, an old man who Modesty befriends and who becomes her tutor, teaching her everything most children learn in school and much more. Lob was a professor who spoke seven languages and had extensive knowledge of many things. So far so good - this is consistent with the books about Modesty.

But in the movie Lob is also a martial arts guru who has killed two prison guards! And yet 12-year-old Modesty has to save him from a couple of rag-tag boys who try to steal from him! Sorry, but it just doesn't work, both because it's inconsistent and because the idea of Lob being both the intellectual mentor and the martial arts teacher is too far out. (In the books Lob was totally helpless without Modesty, and Modesty first learned unarmed combat at a later time in her life.) As for the current story, Modesty is apparently the casino owner's right-hand man, but without any indication of how or why she got this position. Miklos (the bad guy) shows up with a gang of heavily armed nasties, kills a couple of people just to prove that he is indeed the bad guy, and then sits around all night listening to Modesty tell tales of her childhood! How unrealistic and contrived can you get? With the above problems going against it the film just doesn't make the grade.

The film was shot in only 18 days in Hungary and is very obviously a low-budget film. This I don't hold against it - if the casting of Modesty had been better and the script wasn't so dumb I would have accepted the low-budget aspect as an unfortunate fact of life and lauded the film within it's limitations.

Strangely enough, the thing I liked best about "My Name is Modesty" was the casting of Miklos, the bad guy. Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau had an impossible role to play because of the poor script but he did a good job, better than Alexandra Staden's portrayal of Modesty. In fact, Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau could have been a fairly good Willie Garvin. (Willie Garvin is Modesty's trusted sidekick, who enters her life a couple of years after the events shown in this movie).

The DVD includes a 50-minute interview with Peter O'Donnell, the now-retired creator of the Modesty Blaise character and author of the books and comic strips. He tells again the very moving story about his meeting with the real-life little girl who later inspired him to create Modesty Blaise. (His telling of the story is much more moving than the re-enactment that we see at the beginning of this movie.) The DVD also includes a 40-minute interview with Quentin Tarantino, a long-time Modesty fan who is the driving force behind Miramax getting the movie rights to the character. There is also an extensive index to all of the Modesty comic strips.

Despite me giving only six points I'm recommending this movie if you're a Modesty fan. If not, then it's best to avoid it.

Rennie Petersen

I saw "Modesty Blaise" in the cinema when it was first released in 1966. At that time I had already read the book, which I loved, and I came away from the cinema thinking that this travesty, this blasphemy of a movie was total trash.

Peter O'Donnell, the author of the book and the comic strip that inspired the movie, went on to write a whole series of books about Modesty Blaise, and I loved them all, especially the first five - six of them, after which the series declined somewhat. I became a greater and greater fan of Modesty Blaise, and my memory of this movie remained completely negative.

Why this negativity? Because the movie does not follow the true concept of Modesty at all. The Modesty books are intelligent and exciting and character-driven, with a touch of humor. In particular, the characters of Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin (Modesty's loyal side-kick) and their unusual relationship are key factors in the books.

This movie, on the other hand, is just plain silly. It's "campy", with all of the characters acting strangely and with everything that is done being exaggerated. Modesty and Willie, who are both poorly cast relative to their appearance and physique as described in the books, even break into song a couple of times! So as a movie depicting the "true Modesty Blaise" this movie deserves one point, even though the script does actually follow the first book to a large extent, although everything is modified a bit one way or another.

Now I've watched the movie again on DVD, and my opinion is less harsh.

If you take the point of view that this isn't a Modesty Blaise movie, but a Joseph Losey movie, then it isn't all that bad. Joseph Losey (the director) did have a specific idea of what kind of (campy) movie he wanted to make, and by gum, he did make it.

"Modesty Blaise" (the movie) lasts all of two hours, and the style is consistent and sure. Everyone acts consistently silly, the plot is silly, the action is silly and even the theme song (although catchy) is silly. So if you're in the mood for a silly, campy movie, you've come to the right place.

In fact, if I was a fan of campy movies then I might be giving this movie eight or ten points. But I'm not, so I'll leave it at six points. But it does deserve that simply for the consistent weirdness and for the song "Ice is Nice", sung by Bob Breen. (There's actually a sound track CD available!) Incidentally, there is no extra material on the DVD, although it does include sound tracks in English, French and Spanish.

Over the years there was often talk of a new Modesty movie, and finally in 2003 "My Name is Modesty" was made and released directly to DVD. Comparing this movie with "My Name is Modesty" (which I also give six points out of ten) I can say that the big difference is in the intention.

"Modesty Blaise" (the movie) was not intended to be a true Modesty movie, so it fails if that is what one is looking for. But it succeeds fairly well in what it was attempting to be, namely a campy movie.

"My Name is Modesty", on the other hand, really was trying to be a true Modesty movie, so it simply fails.

We true blue Modesty fans are still waiting for a good Modesty movie.

Rennie Petersen

I'd heard about this 1982 American TV pilot for a possible Modesty Blaise TV series many times, but hadn't felt much desire to see it. But finally, after the disappointment of "My Name is Modesty", curiosity got the better of me and I ordered it on DVD from a place called "Video Search of Miami".

I should have saved my money.

This review, and the measly 4 out of 10 rating, are for the movie itself, not for the technical quality of the DVD I received. If I were rating that I'd be giving zero stars. I've never seen such poor video quality - it looks like a 10th generation VHS tape copy that was then digitized with way too much compression. The colors and noise and digitization artifacts are such that it is often difficult to see what is going on! But now I'll try to ignore the poor video quality and spend the rest of this review talking about the program.

The movie lasts 50 minutes. After a very James Bond-inspired title sequence we are introduced to Modesty (played by Ann Turkel), Willie (Lewis Van Bergen), Weng (Sab Shimono) and Tarrant (Keene Curtis). Modesty and Willie rescue a damsel in distress, they go up against the bad guys at Tarrant's instigation, they get captured and locked up, they break out, and they foil the dastardly villains' nefarious plans. So far, so good.

But from here on it's almost all negative.

There is one major overriding problem: This is not really Modesty Blaise at all. The names of the major characters and a few story elements are correct, but it's otherwise totally wrong.

To start with, this is an action comedy! Modesty and Willie are constantly making with the wisecracks, and nothing is taken seriously. We are supposed to think this is a very funny movie, but even neglecting the displeasure felt by a loyal Modesty fan, the story and the situations are way too dumb to be funny.

The plot is so dumb it hardly rates as being called a plot. The bad guys are silly instead of scary. Tarrant (who is bald!) acts like an idiot. Weng gets drunk and is unable to drive Modesty home. The damsel in distress (purportedly a genius) acts like a high school chickypoo. Etc., etc.

Another problem for me is the Americanization of just about everything. To me it is important that Willie and Tarrant are English and that London is "home" for the Modesty adventures.

In this movie it's all been moved to California. Willie and Tarrant are Americans, Modesty lives in a house in the Hollywood hills and Willie's Treadmill is a nightclub in Los Angeles. It just isn't the same.

Ann Turkel doesn't really fit the role of being Modesty in my opinion. She has a nice friendly open face with no trace of anything exotic or exciting. And to make it worse she has long curly hair.

I'll finally mention that the production is obviously very low budget. The bad guys' lair, which is supposed to be in Mexico, almost looks like it was filmed in somebody's back yard.

So all in all I have to say that this production is the worst of the three efforts so far to bring Modesty to the screen. I was close to giving an even lower rating, but there are a few redeeming features. They did base the movie to a small extent on the real Modesty, and the casting of Willie, and the way he tells of his past, wasn't too bad. There's also a plus point for having Willie surprise us all when he draws a third throwing knife.

Rennie Petersen