The Palmer Files: Herren der Apokalypse

After you've watched Bullet to Beijing, in which Michael Caine plays the famous fictional spy Harry Palmer, go out and rent the sequel Midnight in Saint Petersburg. Technically, you can watch this one by itself, but it starts up when the other ended, and so the ending of the first movie would be spoiled.

Once again, Michael Caine finds himself mixed up with bad guys in Russia. He's trying to stop them from acquiring plutonium, and together with Jason Connery—who's just as adorable and endearing as he was in the first film—they head back to Saint Petersburg to save the world! One of my favorite scenes is when Michael finds a bomb in his office. He throws it out of the window, but a dog picks it up and starts running around with it. Michael and his Russian colleagues are shouting at the dog in different languages, trying to get him to drop the bomb, but he runs down an alley seconds before the explosion. Everyone is pretty depressed—and so is the audience—until the dog trots out of the alley, unscathed! Very tense, but with a happy ending.

I liked these later Harry Palmer movies because they're pretty light and fun, without a lot of heavy drama or complicated plot points. Check them out for an afternoon marathon!

Well, as a movie, it isn't that great, very predictable, specially who the bad one is. How ever, I have been going to St Petersburg just about every year since 1998, but not this year :( and it really made me miss her.

What I liked about the movie was that it should a lot of real Russians (like at the Circus) and had many Russian actors, and pretty realistically portrayed St Petersburg, including the feuds between the mafias at that time, and the checking for weapons at some popular restaurants. I also recognized the interior of the Nevskii Palac which has since changed hands but is still a ***** hotel. I stayed across the street once and around the corner once for a week in Russian style flats for what they want for a night ;-) I don't speak fluent Russian, but I know enough to understand that he was told to meet the guy that was shot at the Leningradky Vokzahl (railway station) by the statue of Lenin. This is a famous place in SPB, one of the few public statues of Lenin still existing and people jokingly mention that he looks like he is trying to flag down a 'cab' (not an official one of course, just any car, including an army vehicle, that might be headed in the right direction). So when he makes the misleading statements about going to Moskow and shows up at the Moskovsky Vokszhal I was wondering what they would do until he took another cab to the right place. Rarely do I get the 'insider's thrill' like this'.

Not a movie to watch if you want great cinema, but one to see for glimpses of real Russia. I also liked that the Russians were not the bad guys per se and vice versa.

Could have been a much better movie. I was not surprised to learn it was 'made for TV'. Michael Caine was Michael Caine, which is to say the character fits him like a glove, but he did seem to be mailing his performance in. Needed a much stronger director I think.

Other reviews speak well of Caine's performance but I found him well below par. To be fair he has a dreadful script, an improbable storyline and no other star to live up to, but he looks just old, tired, (which he probably felt at the time), and miscast and it shows. The Harry Palmer of The Ipcress File fame is no more. Bullet to Beijing is better, quite a bit better, but that is also well below Caine's best. Connery is a nice looking young man, like his dad was, but his acting skills are modest. The stars of this film are the Russians! They give it a touch of authenticity and some can act.

It is not hard to see why Disney dumped both these films. Harry Palmer done in by Bond was the phrase I read at the time. However on a final and slightly positive note: both films make grade B, require little thought and even less imagination. If you have nothing better to do then have a look to see how far the mighty can fall. You will sleep well after wards if you are not asleep before the end!

Every time I woke up during this film there seemed to be Caine jumping in a car and rushing off somewhere.If it was trying to capture the magic of the first three Palmer films then it failed miserably,not just because they were the product of a different time and atmosphere, but because its a muddle to a point I really didn't have a clue what was going on, just a lot of cars buzzing about,old factories and the usual rat-tat-tat dialogue. While Caine was hungry for the fame in the first Palmer pictures and acted accordingly, he is not hungry anymore here and is obviously just Michael Caine acting as Michael Caine, but its not all his fault as he has no foil here to bounce off due to the dull co-stars.

Compared to other Harry Palmer films, Midnight in Saint Petersburg is rather mediocre: rambling script, nothing-special cast (apart from two Sir Michaels: Caine and Gambon), uneven change of scenes. The latter is most annoying as you lose track of events sometimes and well performed scenes vary with cheaply filmed chases or scuffles.

The biggest value of this film to me is the filming location - Saint Petersbourg - as I spent several years there studying just some years before the film was shot. Thus, most of places were familiar to me - well, that could be a reason my focus could transfer from watching the events into watching the background, this beautiful city.

If you are eager to see all Palmer-related films, then do it and include the film in question. Otherwise, you might feel bored.