Estouffade à la Caraïbe

A fun filled caper movie where the bad guys are the good guys. Its pure sixties hokum, and it is truly fine. Frederick Stafford with his classic James Bond type good looks is the main man, assisted by Jean Seberg and a quite bemused Serge Gainsbourg. This is a film that is a total joy from start to finish, and afterwards you will be baying for more of the same. I love it, take me back to the sixties now.

Frederick Stafford plays the role of a notorious safe cracker. He has been involved in the biggest bank robberies across the world. Since he never got caught, he's not slowly but surely rotting away in La Santé or Wandsworth, but enjoying his 'retirement' in the Caribbean. But well, with such a reputation as his, it's difficult to remain incognito. So, one day he gets involuntarily dragged into a plot by a local rebel group, to overthrow a ruthless dictator.

The plan is simple: steal all the gold contained in the treasury department of the fictitious island. The execution is a little bit more complex: the rebels will have to neutralize the praetorian guard of the little Hitler, but they also need Stafford to crack the state of the art safe. Flatly refusing doesn't seem to be an option, so he very reluctantly agrees to help them. However, after having met the daughter of one of the rebel leaders (Jean Seberg), he's getting a little bit more enthusiastic.

The principal actors are quite good. The presence of French singer/composer Serge Gainsbourg in this movie though is absolutely NOT a nice bonus: he's playing a very irritating, chimp-like character. The 'Caribbean' locations are of course very nice, but the plot is relatively bleak, uninteresting, and at no time nail-biting. The weakest part are the dialogs, which are poor, wooden, humorless... So this movie really is miles away from Bond, and light years away from 'The spy who came in from the cold' !