La calle de la Media Luna

Dr Lauren Slaughter is an American academic who comes to London to work for a foreign-affairs think-tank. Her work is prestigious but badly paid, and Lauren decides to supplement her income by moonlighting for an upmarket escort agency, mostly catering for the needs of wealthy foreign businessmen. The set-up is not officially a prostitution ring, but sails fairly close to being one; the idea is that the man pays for the girl's company and it is then up to her whether she goes to bed with him. Lauren proves a success in her new line of work and is able to leave her downmarket flat for a much more exclusive residence in the Half Moon Street of the title. The film explores what happens when she falls in love with one of her clients, Lord Bulbeck, a Government foreign office minister involved in negotiations towards a Middle East peace settlement.

This is not really one of Michael Caine's best films. Most of his best performances have come in films where he has played characters who are, in one sense or another, outsiders or rebels against the system- the down-at-heel spy in "The Ipcress File", the Cockney womaniser in "Alfie", the gangster in "Get Carter", the cynical, disillusioned academic in "Educating Rita" or the drunken minor diplomat in "The Honorary Consul". Admittedly, his first starring role was in "Zulu", where he played the upper-class Lieutenant Bromhead, but I have never thought he was the best thing about that film. Here he plays a high-ranking establishment figure, but never seems completely convincing in the role, even though Bulbeck, a working-class trade union official raised to the peerage, is a co-opted member of the British establishment rather than one born to the purple.

Sigourney Weaver, however, is better as the heroine. She was, along with the likes of Meryl Streep, Kim Basinger, Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer, one of the bright new generation of Hollywood actresses who came to prominence in the late seventies and eighties, and gave some great performances in films like "Alien", "Gorillas in the Mist" and "Working Girl". Here she captures the various, often conflicting, aspects of Lauren's personality,- her intelligence, her outgoing nature and a hint of an underlying mercenary ruthlessness, which nevertheless co-exists with a genuine capacity for love.

For most of its length the film is a psychological romantic drama, like a romantic comedy without the jokes, and as such it works reasonably well. Towards the end, however, it morphs into a political thriller as Lauren discovers that she has become embroiled in a conspiracy by opponents of the Middle East peace process to assassinate Bulbeck, and as a thriller it does not work well at all, failing to generate any real tension. Despite a promising beginning, this sudden switch from one genre to another means that "Half Moon Street" is one of those films that fall between two stools. 6/10

This starts off quite well, with some interesting ideas about traditions, rituals and values in different societies, however about halfway into it, the film starts to fall down, triggered by the introduction of thriller elements that just do not quite work. Sigourney Weaver delivers a strong performance throughout though. The rest of the performers do not do much out of the ordinary, but Weaver manages to bring a sense of credibility to her part, although she is too often topless. The partial nudity involving her is excessive for the film's story, but otherwise, she is great to have on screen, and her attractiveness does not hurt. There is not much of a directing vision to the material, the story is only half-good and there are probably a few other minor problems to be found. Sigourney Weaver certainly enlivens the material however, and the film is not bad to start with. For Weaver fans, it is definitely worth a look, however even for others it is satisfactory enough film-making to be perhaps worth checking out.

This tale of an American academic confronting sexism, snobbery and so on while getting mixed up in Middle East politics because she becomes an expensive escort seemed very with it when it was released but now seems very dated. Its view of feminism is pretty narrow. Michael Caine plays Michael Caine and Signourney Waver stands around talking about pretrodollars. The film does not aim for eroticism, but despite that shows plenty of Ms Weaver semi-naked. The ending is a cop-out, and also features an unbelievably incompetent hit man.

Half Moon Street is basically an average film with some good talent in it. From the reviews this is a movie people either love or hate, but I think the elements balance each other out and the end result lands it in the middle of the film quality spectrum. Sigourney Weaver comes across totally convincingly as a Mid East scholar who becomes an escort by night to make ends meet (anyone who is a fan of hers will probably appreciate her many nude scenes!). Michael Caine also gives a good performance as an English lord trying to broker a secret Middle East peace deal. Where this film falters is in the script, which is too talky and it seems to take a long time for the story to get going. The last twenty minutes is well filmed and exciting, but there is a lot of plodding to go through before the good part arrives. Fans of Caine and/or Weaver will probably love it; for everyone else, not really a bad film, but not really great either.

Before I give you my opinion of this movie, I must tell you that I bought it just for the fact that Sigourney Weaver was in it. Back in late '93 - early '94, I was just becoming one of Ms. Weaver's fans. I bought the video from a little video store close to my house. When I watched it, it was (and still is!) a real treat to see a topless Ms. Weaver. Not only is she topless in more than one place in the film, the whole "famous exercise bike" scene has to rank as one of the top ten seduction scenes in my book! That having been said, as the years have passed, I've grown to like the rest of the movie for what it is: a romance/political suspense movie. I have yet to read the book, but I hope to sometime. All in all, a great movie!