Best movie of this year hands down!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

So I'm looking for an oldie to watch on a boring afternoon. I ran into this one on YouTube and since I like Michael Cain I decided to give it a go. I wish I'd given it a miss, instead.The film is nothing to write home about. But it's Sigourney Weaver's character that annoyed me beyond endurance. She plays Dr. Lauren Slaughter, a super intelligent, witty, educated woman, who is a research fellow at the Arab-Anglo Institute in London, and who decides to go into prostitution to fight boredom and make ends meet. At first you think she's honest and pragmatic about it. She's bored with her job, she needs the money, she turns tricks for an escort agency. That I could have respected, if that's the word I want.Instead, she treats us to an endlessly snarly, hackneyed, pseudo- feminist attitude, which is painful to watch. She eschews makeup and nice clothes (her wits are enough to dazzle clients), and spouts commonplace, moral drivel to her "employers" and all her dates, as if to say, 'Look, I'm still intelligent, educated; and I'm a liberated woman, too, not an object.' It's not prostitution if you want to do it, you see. Men will respect you in the morning. Seriously? You're still turning tricks for money, dear. Men still pay to use your body. You won't understand my complaint if you are a man, or if you are a modern-day feminist (all the latter understand is 'You don't criticize women. Ever.' And they think that's enough to make them good feminists). But I was annoyed and bored to half to death.And in the end, in spite of all her intelligence, education, smart-as-a-whip comebacks ... Dr. Slaughter still gets conned, big time. Aww.

Dr Lauren Slaughter is an American academic who comes to London to work for a foreign-affairs think-tank. Her work is prestigious but badly paid, and Lauren decides to supplement her income by moonlighting for an upmarket escort agency, mostly catering for the needs of wealthy foreign businessmen. The set-up is not officially a prostitution ring, but sails fairly close to being one; the idea is that the man pays for the girl's company and it is then up to her whether she goes to bed with him. Lauren proves a success in her new line of work and is able to leave her downmarket flat for a much more exclusive residence in the Half Moon Street of the title. The film explores what happens when she falls in love with one of her clients, Lord Bulbeck, a Government foreign office minister involved in negotiations towards a Middle East peace settlement.This is not really one of Michael Caine's best films. Most of his best performances have come in films where he has played characters who are, in one sense or another, outsiders or rebels against the system- the down-at-heel spy in "The Ipcress File", the Cockney womaniser in "Alfie", the gangster in "Get Carter", the cynical, disillusioned academic in "Educating Rita" or the drunken minor diplomat in "The Honorary Consul". Admittedly, his first starring role was in "Zulu", where he played the upper-class Lieutenant Bromhead, but I have never thought he was the best thing about that film. Here he plays a high-ranking establishment figure, but never seems completely convincing in the role, even though Bulbeck, a working-class trade union official raised to the peerage, is a co-opted member of the British establishment rather than one born to the purple.Sigourney Weaver, however, is better as the heroine. She was, along with the likes of Meryl Streep, Kim Basinger, Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer, one of the bright new generation of Hollywood actresses who came to prominence in the late seventies and eighties, and gave some great performances in films like "Alien", "Gorillas in the Mist" and "Working Girl". Here she captures the various, often conflicting, aspects of Lauren's personality,- her intelligence, her outgoing nature and a hint of an underlying mercenary ruthlessness, which nevertheless co-exists with a genuine capacity for love.For most of its length the film is a psychological romantic drama, like a romantic comedy without the jokes, and as such it works reasonably well. Towards the end, however, it morphs into a political thriller as Lauren discovers that she has become embroiled in a conspiracy by opponents of the Middle East peace process to assassinate Bulbeck, and as a thriller it does not work well at all, failing to generate any real tension. Despite a promising beginning, this sudden switch from one genre to another means that "Half Moon Street" is one of those films that fall between two stools. 6/10

The original story, a novella by Paul Theroux, was turned into a screenplay, also by Theroux (he wrote several). It was terrific. You couldn't put it down. It was a highly-atmospheric work with complex characters. We struggled to find the right director, who could give it the right kind of film noir look at which Theroux was clearly aiming. We ran into early problems when few actors we approached for the female lead were willing to play this kind of a role. The nudity was not an issue; they just didn't "identify" with Dr. Slaughter.Signing Sigourney Weaver was a blessing but also a problem since she's taller than most leading men but fortunately, so is Michael Caine. We got lucky in that combination. We had long conferences with the director, who seemed to understand exactly what Theroux's concept was all about.During shooting in London, the RKO team (in New York and Los Angeles; our post-production group was based in London) kept asking the head of production how things were going, how the dailies looked, etc. He told us they were on time and under budget, which was true.When the film was finished, I went to London with the President of RKO Pictures to look at an assemble edit. It was almost unwatchable. I began to wonder if there was a good way to edit around the female lead. But it wasn't really her fault. Who could possibly undress Sigourney Weaver and make her look unsexy? That took a special kind of talent. We walked out of the screening room into the daylight of Dolphin Square and contemplated the end of our careers.Fortunately we were able to make other pictures and have the time to spend the rest of our lives wondering exactly how to apologize for this one.

Even though their is a lot of people who say this and the book are dull, I disagree. Adapted from Dr. Slaughter, this is a fairly well written, well photographed, and very well acted movie. The premise is original and the film really does score (no pun intended). Respectable 8/10.