Review of Hopscotch (1980) by Chase _ — 09 Nov 2008

In Hopscotch, ageing spy Miles Kendig (a relentlessly inane Walter Matthau) is demoted to a desk job. In retaliation for this - although frankly he could have suffered far worse fates than a desk job - he writes a tell-all memoir detailing 30 years of the CIA's dirty secrets. He sends it one chapter at a time to intelligence agencies around the world, and a chase ensues to stop him publishing it. Kendig does more globetrotting than Bond, always staying at least three steps ahead of everyone following him. This makes life easy for him, but not for the audience. Since we never really know what he's up to, and since he seems (rightfully) confident that he's going to get away with it, there's never any tension. In fact, Kendig is such a chirruping, self-assured pest that I wasn't particularly invested in his success or failure. If the film ended with Matthau getting a bullet in the brain, it wouldn't have made much odds to me, since this is all his fault and he's constantly making it worse by goading (and tipping off) the CIA, who then inexplicably follow his leads.

All that's left for the oblivious viewer to do is follow him around the world, waiting (in vain) to find out what's so damned dangerous about this book he's writing. I won't give away the ending, but it appear that Brian Garfield (who wrote and adapted the novel) doesn't know either.

This is like a Bond film without the action, romance, excitement and, save for some gentle banter, jokes. With its jowly antihero ambling around pretty much just to draw attention to himself, it's the Driving Miss Daisy of spy films: occasionally amusing, not wholly satisfying, and not quite as incendiary as it thinks it is.