Who payed the critics

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

A disaster. Forget the inflammatory political suppositions, the film is a disgrace on just about every level. A group of wealthy girls is kidnapped by the PLA(?) and CIA operative Peter O'Toole is brought in to locate them in director Otto Preminger's woefully misguided "thriller." The director, usually one of the most sure footed technicians, really loses his touch with this film. There are times when the camera pans so quickly, one is left wondering if Preminger is unable to recall who or what the focus of action should be. Scripted by Preminger's son, the movie is neither suspenseful nor exciting. It's muddled, at times awkward and almost completely miscast. O'Toole, a replacement for Robert Mitchum, literally mugs at the camera in a few scenes and the rest of the actors appear either fleetingly (Peter Lawford is in one scene) or look ridiculous (Richard Attenborough as a Brit who's running a terrorist outfit from a cave in Lebanon). And just WHAT is former NYC mayor John V. Lindsay doing in this? Fortunately for Preminger, he had one more film in him (THE HUMAN FACTOR) which turned out to be one if his best.

Topical (for 1975) adaptation of a book by Paul Bonnecarrere and Joan Hemingway concerning five nubile young women from wealthy families kidnapped off their yacht Rosebud by an underground Palestine Liberation organization nicknamed Black September; the kidnappers, centered in Corsica, want retribution for the slaughter of their women and children caused by a Jewish millionaire involved in the illegal smuggling of arms. Peter O'Toole is barely present as a British correspondent (in a dopey hat) adept at mediating sanctions between terrorists and their targets, while the kidnap victims (in and out of their clothes) do the usual griping about their primitive holding conditions and the awful food. This type of globe-trotting espionage drama needed a gripping Bond-ian touch (or perhaps that of Pakula or Pollack). Director Otto Preminger is certainly capable of being in that class--and he hasn't lost his acerbic sense of humor--but he fails to sort out these complicated matters satisfactorily (the film has no sweep, and little sense of geographical placement). It's far from terrible however, and some of Preminger's asides are clever; his actors seem at half-mast, the narrative weakens as the picture progresses, but there's a fine music score by Laurent Petitgirard and interesting locales. The rest of the film's style lacks finesse. ** from ****

After reading so many reviewers opinions written against this film, I am very glad I saw it tonight. It is the 70's "Syriana" and/or "Munich." It is NOT James Bond, thank god! O'Toole was fine by my taste, just as I'd like a Newsweek-writer-cum-CIA-agent to be portrayed. I especially enjoy his verbal banter w/ the one the father's of the kidnap victims, and his verbal battle w/ the German dyke, photo shop owner. While some reviewers complain that the pacing is s-l-o-w, it requires just this type of feel for what is a docu-film disguising itself as a studio release. The few scenes w/ Attenborough are all that is needed to establish the evil in terrorism. It's no coincidence this film was made in the 70's ... our little geo-political landscape hasn't changed.

Notice that the film has no screenwriting credit. That's because there was apparently no script. There were, however, about an hour and a half's worth of terrorists-making- sure-they're-not-followed scenes, which were suicidally tedious but in a way were a soothing respite from unbearable, aimless dialogue delivered by wooden actors who seemed as confused as the audience. Peter O'Toole of course is not wooden, but he does look severely ill--perhaps as a result of the gastric troubles that nearly killed him in the mid-seventies, or perhaps because there's not enough liquor in the world to douse the humiliating awareness that Man Friday will not be your worst film this year.Put it this way: this excruciating, jaw-droppingly awful film makes Murphy's War look like Citizen Kane. How I'm just grateful, though amazed, that Mystery Science Theater never got hold of it. Did they?Let us draw a discreet veil over this abortion of a film and never speak of it again. In fact, let's ignore everything between The Ruling Class and Stunt Man.