Spoiler Alert...
Added 1/31/2010
I loooooooooooooooooooooooove CHRISTIAN BALE's intense acting here and that thing on the tree it was HOLY CRISIS!!!!!!!!!!!!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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The Boredom Agent.
Added 1/15/2010
The Secret Agent (Christopher Hampton, 1996)
Ponderous adaptation of the Joseph Conrad novel that never really gets off the ground as the thriller it wants to be. Hampton is a serviceable screenwriter (along these same lines, he was responsible for the script for Phillip Noyce's adaptation of The Quiet American six years later), but his directorial career has been infrequent, with long gaps between projects; this may be an indication of why.
Verloc (Bob Hoskins) is a double agent, working both as a spy for Russia and an informant for the British police force in nineteenth-century London. He's doing well raking in cash from both sides of the dangerous game he's playing until Russia changes its ambassador to England. The new chap wants to see some actual results from Verloc's attempts to undermine the British government, so Verloc hatches a plan that involves his wife Winnie (Patricia Arquette)'s mentally challenged brother Stevie (Christian Bale) and a bomb provided for the operation by a shady anarchist known only as The Professor (Robin Williams in an uncredited role). Murphy's Law strikes, however, and Verloc's life is irreparably shaken up as a result.
Hampton assembled a phenomenal cast for this (aside from those mentioned above, one will find Gerard Depardieu, Jim Broadbent, and Eddie Izzard on display) and then didn't give any of them a great deal to do. While this approach did work well in Wayne Wang's Smoke, The Secret Agent is an entirely different beast altogether; things actually are supposed to go on here, but they rarely do. Of all Conrad's novels, The Secret Agent seems as if it would actually be the easiest to film; no one, however, has yet succeeded in filming an adaptation of it worth watching. You can tune into this one for the cast, but don't expect much. **
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The Secret Agent.
Added 10/24/2009
I bought this DVD for three reasons.
1. I knew everyone in the cast and all were excellent.
2. I love the music of Philip Glass.
3. I like this movie very much.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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not true to the heart of novel
Added 4/20/2009
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.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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A nostalgic sleepy and literate period piece spy drama that periodically captures your attention when least expected. Not as stimulating as one could imagine but nevertheless credible.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Spoiler Alert...
Added 1/31/2010
I loooooooooooooooooooooooove CHRISTIAN BALE's intense acting here and that thing on the tree it was HOLY CRISIS!!!!!!!!!!!!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
The Boredom Agent.
Added 1/15/2010
The Secret Agent (Christopher Hampton, 1996)
Ponderous adaptation of the Joseph Conrad novel that never really gets off the ground as the thriller it wants to be. Hampton is a serviceable screenwriter (along these same lines, he was responsible for the script for Phillip Noyce's adaptation of The Quiet American six years later), but his directorial career has been infrequent, with long gaps between projects; this may be an indication of why.
Verloc (Bob Hoskins) is a double agent, working both as a spy for Russia and an informant for the British police force in nineteenth-century London. He's doing well raking in cash from both sides of the dangerous game he's playing until Russia changes its ambassador to England. The new chap wants to see some actual results from Verloc's attempts to undermine the British government, so Verloc hatches a plan that involves his wife Winnie (Patricia Arquette)'s mentally challenged brother Stevie (Christian Bale) and a bomb provided for the operation by a shady anarchist known only as The Professor (Robin Williams in an uncredited role). Murphy's Law strikes, however, and Verloc's life is irreparably shaken up as a result.
Hampton assembled a phenomenal cast for this (aside from those mentioned above, one will find Gerard Depardieu, Jim Broadbent, and Eddie Izzard on display) and then didn't give any of them a great deal to do. While this approach did work well in Wayne Wang's Smoke, The Secret Agent is an entirely different beast altogether; things actually are supposed to go on here, but they rarely do. Of all Conrad's novels, The Secret Agent seems as if it would actually be the easiest to film; no one, however, has yet succeeded in filming an adaptation of it worth watching. You can tune into this one for the cast, but don't expect much. **
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
The Secret Agent.
Added 10/24/2009
I bought this DVD for three reasons.
1. I knew everyone in the cast and all were excellent.
2. I love the music of Philip Glass.
3. I like this movie very much.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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