Excellent but underrated film

As Good As It Gets

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Crossplot is certainly a product of it's time, a movie that grabs onto the coat tails of Swinging London, just before London threw that colourful coat in the bin. It's also a movie of many faces. 'Hitchcockian' in the thriller elements and conventional in the screwball Comedy elements. Dare I say it, many plot elements are lifted straight from North by Northwest, however, star Sir Roger Moore is called upon to be a lot more physical than Cary Grant had been in that movie.Sir Roger Moore, straight from his 7 years in his iconic TV role as Simon Templar in The Saint, plays an advertising man, duped into finding a particular model for an Ad campaign he's trying to secure. The photo of this model has been 'planted' in his file by people with their own nefarious motives, who want to silence her for what she may or may not know, about a forthcoming assassination attempt on a visiting world leader and Moore's character is dragged further into this web of intrigue when he meets the girl and is wrongfully accused of Murder. Now on the run, he's determined to clear his name and unravel the mystery that has led to this mess. Throw in a few hippies, because after all, it's the sixities, you're left with a quite entertaining caper.The plot, (or crossplot, if I may be allowed drop a pun or two), has a number of obvious holes. For instance, the whole scheme of the bad guys, relied solely on Moore not looking at the file with the planted photo, before he presented it to his advertising client (Bernard Lee), who turns out to be in it up to his neck anyway. That's pretty thin for starters.The movie was designed to reinvent Roger Moore as something other than The Saint. Firstly, his image has been updated, (for the time anyway), the hair is slightly longer as are the sideburns and worn without the slick quiff the Saint had been known for. Secondly, the character Moore plays is not as cool under fire as Simon Templar had been and Moore's character is like Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill. This is where the comparisons to North by Northwest can be made.A) An innocent ad man in the wrong place at the wrong time B) wrongfully accused of a murder must now clear his name whilst trying to stay alive C) uses an attention seeking obnoxious way to escape from would be assassins in a public place. D) There is also a Mcguffin, in North by Northwest, it was the fictional George Kaplan, here it is the Hungarian model.I can only bring myself to give this a 7 because it is so obviously filmed on a shoestring budget, that the movie fails to be convincing. Poor and obvious back projection shots, blatant set constructions. It has all the hallmarks and feel of a Saint TV episode, which is not surprising given that almost to a man, the entire production crew that had worked on The Saint worked on this movie. In fact, had it not been for the different character name and the fact he was an Ad man, this would have made a great feature length Saint story.The real thrill, as always is watching the great Sir Roger Moore in the lead role, However, if you want to see Moore at his best when he wasn't Ivanhoe, The Saint, Lord Brett Sinclair or James Bond, then you need to watch Moore's next movie, the darker, more serious, The Man Who Haunted Himself, made the following year. This is a great example of a TV crew on a TV budget trying to make a theatrical movie and for the most part, they succeed admirably. Very entertaining.Enjoy!

Everything is bad in this film, from beginning to end. The music is very annoying, preferably to be seen on mute (like this at least gets a little funnier). The whole scenario is not worth a damn, it has no sense. All the actors are bad. Everything is awkward and intrusive. You want to finish as soon as possible, to look for something better to watch. When I was little, I was somewhat fascinated by Roger Moore in The Saint (it was more because of the musical theme...). As James Bond, he is the least convincing of all the actors who have played it (well, tied with Daniel Craig). Here is downright poop. There's no plot in the movie, it's an annoying waste of time. All those who have written or will write the contrary, they need injections of liquid brain.

Crossplot rattles along at a breakneck pace and is a smart, ingenious and enormously entertaining adventure film. Roger Moore is great in a pre-Bond role as an advertising executive who hires a beautiful Hungarian girl to pose for some modelling shots. What he doesn't realise is that she has eavesdropped on an assassination plot and is the target of some killers.The film reminds me a lot of a John Buchan novel, brought up to date in the swinging sixties. Moore runs from the villains and takes every conceivable route to escape their grasp, fleeing in a classic car, deliberately causing havoc at a wedding, and finally tracking his prey to the scene of their planned atrocity. It's a fast-moving ride!The film has never been available on video in the UK, and I'm pretty sure that it's never been released in the States. Come on guys, what are you waiting for? Get this movie released! It's a corker!

'Crossplot' was Roger Moore's first attempt to return to the big screen after seven years in television as Simon Templar. Unfortunately, it all went wrong. The budget of the film proved to be much too small as for an action picture. It was also too old-fashioned and in a way too much television-like since entire crew consisted of 'The Saint' personnel. The result is a movie which today can be only suggested for Roger Moore fans. I'm one of them and so I enjoyed watching the film really much. The acting is pretty good. Moore is doing good job, trying to eliminate as many elements for which he was recognizable as the Saint as it's possible, but still it feels a lot like another 'saintly' adventure. The script is very predictable and its only great moments are when Moore is let to show his light sense of humour and prove that he does really great in such genres as for instance the 'romantic comedy'. The opening sequence (my favourite) is very much like if it was taken from all those 'lovely' Cary Grant movies from the 50s, with Moore at his best, having fun while playing a sort of a less distinguished Brett Sinclair. The film's weakness seems to be that it's not sure if it's a serious thriller, action picture or maybe a comedy. There are too many 'romantic' and 'funny' moments in it as for a true action film but on the other hand 'Crossplot's' script seems to be seriously dramatized since at least three people are to die during the film. Hm, not the best thing, but still worth seeing for Roger Moore fans.