Terrorists, take notes.

Rating: Null/10 (16 October 2016)

Hitchcock is famous for saying that actors are like cattle and for treating them that way. So-far-so-good. The snag is that he also treated his viewers like cattle, or sheep. Hitch may have had a chip on his shoulder regarding his appearance, but he definitely felt intellectually superior to just about everyone else. (Kinda like myself.) Unfortunately, that intellectual "superiority" never really translated itself into the scripts. His legendary (yet overlooked) disregard for common sense and his disdain for maintaining at least a modicum of realism make him a sort of Svengali who paved the way for bumbling logic-haters such as De Palma, Woo, Argento – just to name the most obvious makers of idiotic thrillers.
NBN is somewhat of a comedy too, but not all-out, which means it's subject to logic-hole dissection. There are glaring logic problems, nonsense of monumental proportions.
Grant leads cops to the villa where he was held hostage, which had been open despite the real owner later stating that it was all closed up. Sillier still, the crooks (for some bizarre reason) turned part of the library into a mini-bar. One of the stupidest scenes in cinema history is when Grant opens the mini-bar to show it to cops but finds only books. I'd expect that in a Python sketch, not in a movie that purports to be a spy thriller: you know, an actual tale of crime-and-espionage that is supposed to deal with real humanoids, as opposed to all-knowing/all-powerful cardboard characters. Well, not quite so powerful: they don't drug Grant enough to prevent him from speeding away. Nor are they smart enough to realize that the man they're looking for doesn't even exist. Mason trusts his goons implicitly: if they say that Grant is Kaplan, then he MUST be Kaplan! Despite the fact that even an amoeba would've figured out half-way through the film that Grant was a victim of mistaken identity; but Mason still doesn't get it. Mason plays a moron, you see. Sure, he's a suave and cunning secret agent and all that – but also a moron. That's Hitchcock for ya: wants to have his (huge) cake and eat it too. Nor does it make sense that the goons mistake Grant for Kaplan in the first place – considering he doesn't exist hence they can't know what he looks like.
Mind-boggling is that supremely idiotic elevator-laughing scene. For a moment there, I thought I was watching an Ed Wood movie or a Luc Godard turkey. It was that clownish. You can't take anything seriously after that.
But not nearly as dumb as what follows. The murder scene in the UN epitomizes everything that's wrong with Hitchcock's movies: they not only insult the viewer's intelligence (admittedly, I might be in the minority here), it insults amoeba intelligence too. (Amoebas are integral to this review.) If amoeba were dumb enough to watch Hitchcock films (and I hear they're not), they'd laugh at that scene. Grant talking to a UN politician – just as someone stabs him from behind – is the stuff of B-movie cheese. Even pulp fiction comic-books have more dignity. This had been a pythonism before Python was even formed. If only terrorists realized how easy it is to kill politicians! Those stupid terrorists and their bombs and their intricate assassination plots: so bloody unnecessary. Hitchcock shows them how easy it can be! You just wait for someone to talk to your victim and then you stab your target in the back and run away – while the other person gets all the blame! It's so simple, duh. Come on, terrorists, you're so dumb to use bombs and plan things for months.
I don't know who wrote Hitchcock's scripts, whether he hired lobotomized amoeba or just fellow misanthropes who thought that every single viewer was a booger-eating cretin, but I do know that whoever wrote the NBN script must have thought that it would be nifty to have a kamikaze pilot chase Grant around. Don't get me wrong, the plane-chase segment is the absolute highlight of this overrated movie, but the pilot must have been a WW2 Japanese who thought the war was still on. Because why else would he crash into the truck? Who the hell gave this guy a pilot's license? Does Mason hire incompetent fools? (His goons can't even tell humans apart.) He seemed to be fine dusting crops, but once he started chasing Grant (which was kinda 10000:1 in his favour) all his pilotary skills just evaporated. Or, as I suggested, he was Japanese and thought Grant was holding a secret message to the President about the Emperor's whereabouts. But even then, you'd expect him to be a little more accurate and hit the front of the truck. (You know, if Hitch ever did make a movie about an American trying to assassinate Hirohito, I bet the entire plot would be set in Kansas instead of Japan. Not to mention that Hirohito would be played by Gary Cooper, coz that's how they cast movies back then.)
After the chase, Grant locates the blonde who'd set him up to be killed. Ever the "Golden Era" gentleman, Grant doesn't mind too much that she was responsible for him being nearly cut up into pieces by a propeller. He is still fairly affable toward her, all things considering, if a little sarcastic and moody. It's the kind of "old-school" nonsense we get to see in such flicks.
Eventually Grant finds out the truth from the old geezer, yet he doesn't scream at him for allowing her to set him up in the desert. Is Grant that dumb then? Not only that, we're supposed to root for Grant who wants to spoil CIA's plans just so he can get it in with the blonde. So their love-affair is more important than (inter)national security?
The decision to run away via Mount Rushmore is pretty bloody stupid too.