The Sell Out

This movie is awful. I gave it a 4, could have been a 2 or a 3 as well. The cast and the location offer potential, but the story makes virtually no sense, the script is awful, etc. I tried to follow the story and give it a chance, but there is never any coherence or reason given for why anyone is doing anything. Just avoid this one.

Despite seeing one of my dear actors, Oliver Reed, the film didn't go down well. It is extremely predictable and boring. The whole movie repeats the same thing, the request that Gabriel Lee, Reed's character, is handed over. We don't have great acting performances. Vladek Sheybal as The Dutchman tries to be cool but it's more ridiculous. Better are Sam Wanamaker as Harry Sickles and Richard Widmark as Sam Lucas is even better.

A pretty good cast with lots of delightful bad guys. But what's the point. Who's who and what do they want? That's the problem. This is a mishmash of intrigue and espionage where we can't tell the characters without a program. We assume we are pulling for Richard Widmark and Oliver Reed, but we can't be sure. What makes a real spy story work is knowing the real milieu that is put forward. If everyone is flip-flopping back and forth within the story and if we don't have an identifiable end, we can't sense the suspense. I just couldn't get into this film. I like Reed and Widmark; they are two wonderful actors, but this must have been thrown together. The pyrotechnics are laughable. They use the old rule, if you can't come up with a plot, use a bunch of car chases. When all is said and done, who are these people answerable to. Is he CIA corrupt or is there a visible entity for us to fear. If there is, it's never brought forward in this film.

Spy escapades riddled with double crosses and triple crosses were all the rage in the '60s and '70s, and this is Peter Collinson's belated addition to the genre. An uninspired and very routine espionage yarn, set (and filmed) in Israel, The Sell-Out is preposterously hard-to-follow at times but it would be wrong to dismiss it as a complete failure. It may not be especially good, but the performances are competent enough and the climactic chase sequence is moderately exciting.

Elderly ex-spy Sam Lucas (Richard Widmark) lives in Jerusalem with the much younger Deborah (Gayle Hunnicutt). He likes to think he has left the spy business behind, and he now runs a successful antiquities store. However, he is forced back into action when he receives a call for help from his old protege Gabriel Lee (Oliver Reed). Lee defected to the East some years previously, but has now become the target on a clandestine CIA-KGB death list. His only chance of getting out of Israel alive is to plead for the help of his old pal Lucas, even though it will mean re-igniting long-buried tensions and emotions.

There have been so many films of this ilk that The Sell-Out struggles to come up with anything fresh or interesting. Widmark is likable as the reluctant hero and Reed gets to put in some moody posturing as the enigmatic defector. Director Collinson cuts back on the hard-hitting violence that characterises many of his earlier films (there's violence in this one, but nothing in the same league as Fright or Open Season). The Sell-Out is a very formulaic film, never so bad that you feel like turning it off but never so good that you feel the urge to watch it again. Everyone involved has done better.... and worse.

Poor old Ollie Reed is having a bit of an holiday in Israel when someone tries to kill him... It turns out that he used to run the CIA operation in Lebanon, and that his former employers and the KGB have decided to eliminate some loose ends that might come back to haunt them - he is their current target! In desperation, he turns to his former colleague Richard Widmark ("Sam"), now retired to an antiques business with Gayle Hunnicutt ("Deborah") in Jerusalem. What ensues is a pretty lacklustre espionage thriller, with neither star really bothering. There is quite a funny scene with Reed before the wailing wall looking as if he is about to vomit - a scene that rather sums the whole thing up. It's largely devoid of jeopardy, what action there is has an inevitability about it that isn't at all helped out by a pretty formulaic script. It has some nice photography of the City of David (the bits folks are not trying to blow up) but otherwise is something you will soon forget.