A handsome mess

Rating: 3/10 (12 November 2001)

Someone who claims to have enjoyed this mess might like to attempt a brief summary of the plot, not omitting, as the film did WHY these boring people were doing what they were. Possibly the only really effective scene is simply lifted from Jules Dassin's `Topkapi', but the actor holding the rope in this version is nowhere near as interesting as Peter Ustinov in the original. Perhaps the silliest effect in motion picture history -- the entire train-in-the-Chunnel sequence is completely incredible -- occurs where the Cruse character throws himself back on the TGV using the explosion of the helicopter; see, fellows, the human cannonball at the circus is FAKED; human bodies are destroyed, not harmlessly transported, by explosions. Mmle. Beart, however, is worth remembering.