The Secret Agent
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Movie Reviews of The Secret Agent
Movie Review: Good story, bad performances, terrible movie - UGH!
Summary: 1 Stars
I love Joseph Conrad's novels, but the films are another thing. They virtually never work, and this is just about the worst ever. It's extremely rare and I don't know if it was ever even released in the UK. I know it never got as far as Scotland, for which we can thank Hadrian's Wall. The truth is, the Romans didn't build it, we did to keep films this bad out!
This was obviously a pet project for Bob Hoskins who produced it, but you'd not know it to look at him. He's terrible in the lead. No character, no soul, nothing. Well, he is funny a couple of times, eating his dinner with his hat on or his death scene, but I don't think it was intentional. But compared to the rest of the cast, Eddie Izzard hopeless as the Russian ambassador, Jim Broadbent doing his Only Fools and Horses bit as Inspector Heat, Chris Bale's baleful idiot brother, he almost looks good. But then with the lead going to Patricia Arquette, who wouldn't? She's been worse, but that still doesn't make her any good in this. Her Winnie Verloc is pitiful in all the wrong ways. Why do they hire her? The only consolations are the scenes with Gerard Depardieu and Robin Williams in the restaurant. They work and sum up some of the spirit of the novel even though the two are pretty dire in their scenes in the rest of the film.
The adaptation is faithful but dead. It tells the story but not the characters or the themes and the direction by scripter Christopher Hampton isn't very good either. Honestly, even if you like Conrad you couldn't care less about this one. Badly disappointing and then some.
Movie Review: not true to the heart of novel
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased this video because I am teaching the novel and hoped to show the movie to my students. The reviews I read stated that the movie was true to the book. AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHH! The plot action was nearly identical and some dialogue was right out of the book, but the movie greatly distorted relationships among the characters, distorting the major focus of the book. The way the movie was filmed makes it impossible to fully understand the themes of the novel. I have warned my students against viewing the film.
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