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Fantastic!

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The Mackintosh Man is directed by John Huston and adapted to screenplay by Walter Hill and William Fairchild from The Freedom Trap written by Desmond Bagley. It stars Paul Newman, Dominique Sanda, Ian Bannen, James Mason, Michael Horden and Harry Andrews. Music is by Maurice Jarre and cinematography by Oswald Morris.Spy shenanigans unbound as Newman plays Joseph Rearden, a hired agent for the British Intelligence who pulls a job on the orders of The Mackintosh Man (Andrews), and finds himself sent to prison for 20 years. But this is all part of a greater plan…A well performed and serviceable drama, if a bit of a let down come the final third. The most fun and intrigue comes about once Rearden enters prison and the initial part of plotting once he is broken out, then it sort of loses its way, trying to make a simple story more intricate than it is. There's good mystery viewing to be found in working out the means and motives of the major players, and there's no shortage of action and sizzle either as Rearden is thrust into a world of espionage and counter espionage. There's a ream of suspicious accents to ignore and Jarre's musical score tries to reach the heights of Anton Karas' work on The Third Man, but fails and just comes off as a cheap repetitive attempt at a homage.More caper movie than intellectual thriller, it's never less than watchable and the cast are good value for your time. 7/10

James Reardon is a member of British Intelligence that is called by his boss MacKintosh, to infiltrate a spy organization. To do so, he puts on an Australian accent and robs a postman. He is convicted and sent to jail. There he is approached by a man who offers to help him escape, claiming to be part of an organization. He is helped, but at the same time he is distrusted. Back in London, MacKintosh is trying to tie a prominent London politician into the Soviet(?) scandal. However, MacKintosh gets too close and is assassinated. Reardon too is in danger. MacKintosh's secretary and daughter (once again?) flies up to Ireland and together they track Soviet spies, but their own lives are at risk. Can they make it?This is the film's tag line: "Only MacKintosh can save them now. And MacKintosh is dead!". Wow...when I first heard that tag line I doubled over laughing. Which is precisely one more laugh than I got from this film. There are so many things wrong without this film, I could make a list....hey I've got enough time! Paul Newman plays a British man playing an Australian, sounding like an American. It is hard to understand what Dominique Sanda is saying, and her line delivery can be awful (ex."No, he was my father".). MacKintosh is in the title, and he is in the film for...five minutes. The plot is deliberately confusing. I had no idea what was going on until I looked it up later. Even then, it made no sense. James Mason's villain is paper thin, and the whole Soviet subplot is just a mess.However, the whole thing manages to break even. It is not the worst film Huston made (ahem, I'm looking at you Phobia), but it is far from his best. The whole cast seems incredibly bored, but no one is more bored than Paul Newman. This may very well be the worst performance I have ever seen Newman give. His rendition is so blank and oh so very boring, that at points you want to scream at him to show some of that famous Newman charm. Perhaps he was all charmed out, he made The Sting the same year. Still, he is one of the most dull and lifeless protagonists I've seen in a long time.However he does not give the worst performance of the film. That honor goes to Dominique Sanda. I loved her in Il Conformista, but her performance her has me doubting my initial affection. She too manages to be effortlessly wooden, but with a French accent! Harry Andrews, who plays MacKintosh is charming, but he gives no idea why anyone would have a whole plot revolve around him. Perhaps the one saving grace here is James Mason, he is good. My god, how I longed for some kind of charm! His character is poorly written, yet he manages to be...average!The script is entirely pointless. It makes no sense, and is unnecessarily confusing. It is fulled with pointless exchanges, and scenes were literally nothing important happens. There is a five minute sequence were Sanda and Newman talk, while they tan. That's it. But perhaps the greatest example of shoddy scripting occurs during the climax. Ahem, **SPOILER ALERT**. Sanda has been kidnapped, and Newman must save her from Mason's evil claws, because....he has to save her. So he goes onto a boat and knocks a sailor on the head, and demands to be taken to her, and then...he is. No chase sequence or exchange of dialog, that's..it. Then the sailor takes him to Sanda, and he talks to James Mason for a while, about...nothing. I'm pretty sure they bring up chess at one point. **END SPOILERS**Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't thrillers supposed to...thrill? If they are, than this is most certainly not a thriller. It may seem as if I am bashing the film relentlessly (I am), but the film is not without it's good points. It has some beautiful cinematography. The chase(?) scene through the foggy Irish lowlands is beautiful, even if it is more landscape than cinematography. The score by Maurice Jarre is also very good. It is cheerful and fun, something that Huston should have payed more attention to during the making of the film.Speaking of Huston, he directed this? After all it contains no directorial input, it could have shot itself. It is so boring and uninterestingly shot, it seemed like Huston just gave directing and let the story play itself out. Bad move. It's plot isn't very remarkable, but it could have been at least a little bit thrilling. Huston said himself that he hated the film, and it isn't hard to see why. It is a tepid, middling entry in Huston's filmography, and one I hope to never revisit again.The MacKintosh Man, 1973, Starring: Paul Newman, Dominique Sanda and James Mason, Directed by John Huston, 6/10 (C-) (This is part of an ongoing project to watch and review every John Huston movie. You can read this and other reviews at http://everyjohnhustonmovie.blogspot.ca/)

Desmond Bagley's tightly plotted thriller about a man who escapes from prison with the help of a gang and then finds himself on their wrong side is loosely adapted here and not very well. The idea is a clever one and makes for an excellent suspense thriller in print; in any good thriller, the character is cut off from aid and isolated in the middle of a dangerous situation, and making the central character a fugitive in the company of thugs who mistrust him does this very well. Unfortunately, much of the tension-filled atmosphere of the book is lost here as the story becomes a murky riddle built around a not-very-interesting main character. Newman effectively conveys that he is clearly more than he seems, but the movie has trouble turning that into viewer interest. The grim drizzly look of the movie is its best feature, but even that seems coincidental and not organically connected to the storytelling. There were worse movies made that year, but better ones too.

Despite having authored a string of bestselling thriller novels in the '60's and '70's, Desmond Bagley never enjoyed anything like the fame of his nearest rival, Alistair Maclean. In my view he was the superior writer; check out 'Landslide', 'Juggernaut' and 'Running Blind' if you do not believe me. Whereas Maclean got superlative movies fashioned from 'The Guns Of Navarone', 'Ice Station Zebra', and 'Where Eagles Dare', Bagley's stories were, by and large, ignored by Hollywood. A rare exception was John Huston's 1973 film of 'The Freedom Trap', retitled 'The Mackintosh Man'. Paul Newman plays 'Joseph Rearden', recruited by British Intelligence boss 'Mackintosh' ( Harry Andrews ) for a top secret operation to unmask a traitor at the heart of the establishment. Posing as an Australian jewel thief, he allows himself to be sent to jail for twenty years ( how times change. Nobody would get a sentence like that now even for murder ). A fellow inmate ( Nigel Patrick ) informs him of the existence of 'The Scarperers' - a group who help rich prisoners escape for a large fee. Rearden goes over the wall with Communist spy 'Ronald Slade' ( Ian Bannen ). Some time later, he wakes up in a mysterious country house with sinister German nurse 'Gerda' ( Jenny Runacre ) and creepy 'Mr.Brown' ( Michael Hordern ) for company. But his cover is blown, and he is forced to make a break for it. A phone call to London informs him that Mackintosh - the one man who knows of his innocence - has died...Loosely based on the real-life case of George Blake - a Communist spy who was freed from jail in 1966 by men sympathetic to his cause - this pleasant, old-school spy thriller benefits from a twisty story, location shooting in London, Ireland and Malta, and a first-rate cast. Newman is as solid as ever, and alongside him are some great British stars such as James Mason, Roland Culver, Percy Herbert, and Peter Vaughan, with lovely Dominique Sanda as Mackintosh's daughter 'Mrs.Smith'. Stealing the show, however, is the stunning Jenny Runacre as 'Gerda', who gets to inflict some painful-looking wounds on the star. Wonderful Irish actors like Noel Purcell and Eddie Byrne appear fleetingly. Maurice Jarre's title theme is very much in the same vein as Anton Karras' music for 'The Third Man'.Walter Hill, who wrote the script, later became a major action director with '48 Hours' and 'The Driver' to his credit. He sticks to the book but the ending has been unfortunately changed. Instead of 'Sir George Wheeler's' ( Mason ) yacht being blown up by a limpet mine, we get a more low-key climax similar to that of 'The Ipcress File'. It ends far too quickly for my liking. Rearden deserved better than to be dumped by Smith. I'd also like to know how an old lorry could possibly outstrip a powerful Mercedes on a quiet Irish road. Flaws aside, 'The Mackintosh Man' is an above average time-passer.