Review of Saint (1997) by Tara B — 18 Aug 2011

Based on a character created back in 1928, this film tells the story of an expert thief and master of disguise who, in this telling, has all sorts of aliases, all of them named after Catholic saints. The Saint gets involved in all sorts of troubles when his latest caper sees him falling in love and caught up in some nutty geopolitical issues in Russia.

The concept and ideas, mostly that of using saint names as aliases, are pretty damn cool. Unfortunately, the way thigns are executed here leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not quite sure what went wrong. Noyce has experience with this sort of thing, so maybe most of the blame goes to the script and the specific story. Some of it's cool, but it seems a little lifeless and dull.

That said, I still found the film to be entertaining and watchable, even though it isn't really that good. It kinda comes close though.

The love story is a little hokey, and some of this stuff overall is kinda silly, but it's fun, and definitely had potential to be awesome. Val Kilmer is fun to watch use all kinds of different wigs, accents, and costumes, though it amazes me how many of the characters get fooled by some of his disguises, especially since some of them are really not all that great. He does a good job though. Shue is okay, or at least servicable, though she kidna comes off as a little silly, which clashes with some of the more dramatic and seriosu thriller elements at hand.

Actually, I think I just figured it out. Part of the issue here is the tone. It's uneven, and unsucessfully tries to mix levity with drama. In a lot of ways, this is like the Bond films, although some of those manage the mixing far better than others. Maybe I'm just underwhelmed by all of this because it didn't seem all that fresh and exciting.

Like I said though, it did entertain me, and I was never bored. See it if you like, but don't expect it to be the real gem it should have been.