Double arnaque

Apparently Michael Caine and Roger Moore are good friends but never worked together so they teamed up in this 1990 film. Unfortunately they ended up with Michael Winner as the director.

Winner who might had once been a decent director was on a downward spiral. He ultimately ended up being better known as a food critic and fronting car insurance adverts.

Here the duo play dodgy nuclear physicists that have invented a form of nuclear fusion but plan to sell their formula to the highest bidder and make themselves rich and double cross their backers.

However at the same time there are a couple of con men who look exactly the same as these nuclear scientists. They get hired to retrieve the formula by CIA and MI5 not before they and a former partner played by Sally Kirkland try to steal some diamonds.

Somewhere along the line Moore's real life daughter pops up now and again. Moore disguises himself as a piano tuner as well as other disguises and there are some poor jokes and some funny ones.

It is all a bit of a mish mash as if the actors were enjoying themselves too much but forgot about the audience.

The critics slated this upon release, it failed at the box office. It is amusing enough and I liked some of the humour but then again I might be easily pleased.

Michael Caine and Roger Moore are two small-time crooks. They also look exactly like a pair of scientists who have perfected fusion power plants, are about to auction the plans to the highest bidder. They break into the scientists' safety deposit vaults and steal the money they've collected so far... and then are conscripted by British and American intelligence to steal the plans.

It's long been my opinion that if there's an exclamation point in the title, there's nothing that requires it in the movie. Director Michael Winner directs a frantic, unfunny movie from a script by Leslie Bricuse that does no credit to anyone involved. The editing pace is so fast that it cuts into laughs that aren't there, the staging is so cheap it would have made Jules White blush; when Caine is in the same scene as his lookalike, they shoot his double from the rear or cut to a separate shot, and the same for Moore. Neither Winner nor Bricuse had a writing credit after this, and if this is the best they could do at this stage of their careers, it's no coincidence.

Caine does an American accent that's flat and annoying. Moore doesn't change his delivery at all. Two actors capable of charm and comedy exhibit neither!

Pairing Roger Moore and Michael Caine must have thought to be a great Idea. Probably inspired by The Man Who Would be King, where Caine was paired with another ex-Bond, Sean Connery. Bullseye didn't have benefit of larger scale epic-like canvass of TMWWBK, as it didn't want itself to be taken seriously. Did Bullseye work?

Yes and No (God, we all hate this kind of answer). No, because most of the time, the jokes fall flat on the face. Yes, because Caine and Moore (as usual) are always great to watch. They play a pair of conmen and a pair of treacherous scientists. Keep an eye on Moore, always known as a great ad-libber. Unfortunately only this two guys are the only reasons to watch the movie.

Bullseye takes the premise of impersonating (this time two of them) and adds twist and turn, moving from a caper flick to espionage. While it tries hard to be a comedy, most of the time you see some humourless farce in an inconsistent progress. I quickly lost interest in the story during the first half an hour and just sat through the rest watching the dynamic duo of England. Being a Bond fan, I was especially delighted to see Moore playing off his Bond persona, even throwing lines like, `For England'. Ring a bell, Bond-fans?

There is Sally Kirkland, who provides some personal agenda to the ageing conmen, while also providing a bit of flesh here and there. She looks positively old and attractive at the same time. But her character does nothing much but to be in between Moore and Caine, and helping them with their con. That's all.

I checked out Michael Winner's (the director) past record, and was surprised to note that he directed the more seroius films like the Death Wish films and The Big Sleep (a supposedly sequel of Farewell, My Lovely). While the former was successful in its own way, the latter killed nostalgic-noir delight began by Farewell, My lovely. He later went on to direct many bombs, and regarded generally as a horrible director. Wonder how he managed to find job for so long. It is so evident in this film. Whether it's him, the script or his crew, the movie failed to amuse many at that time; it will still fail to amuse many now. Bullseye is something the film couldn't achieve.

Oh dear. I'm a big fan of Mr Caine and Mr Moore, and to be honest those two in the lead roles are the only reason to watch the film. Anyone lesser would have made it an utter waste of time.

The film is hackneyed with an incomprehensible plot. Films based on 'doubles' are always dodgy, so much so that even in the 30s it was considered bad plotting to use them in detective stories. At some points in the film I just didn't know who was meant to be whom, and by the time of the second 'double cross' I just lost interest.

While Caine and Moore were at times hilarious ('I come from a broken home...')a lot of the jokes and effects made me cringe. The scene where the train porter gets his head blown off had me rewinding to see if my eyes had not deceived me. That has to be the worst special effect for many years!

I also found the very obvious pitching of the film to the American audience patronising in the extreme. Tourist shots of London, Highland Games, stately homes, stuffy clubs, 'punk' taxi drivers and an unconvincing portrayal of the Queen - all this type of thing was being done far better and with greater irony by the Comic Strip team years before.

So don't expect a great plot or gags but if you like Caine and Moore, it's worth watching - just.

This film is a real mess and that is especially disappointing considering that Moore and Caine work well together and the opening 25 minutes of the film are mildly entertaining.

The basic premise of the film is that Caine and Moore both play dual roles, firstly as an evil pairing (scientists) and as a good pairing (con-men). It's a silly premise but it works well on its own terms at first but once the evil pair are aware of what the good pair is doing, the film disintegrates. The plot becomes more and more convoluted and incomprehensible as the film goes along and therefore all the potential entertainment is extinguished. Caine and Moore aren't to blame for the film's failure as they both give good performances; the fault lies with director Michael Winner.

Even the cameo by John Cleese at the end is muffed.