Operazione Rembrandt

I don't know much about Alistair McLean's series, "Detonator." I haven't seen the first film in this series but you don't need too. Pierce Brosnan played Michael Graham, an United Nations agent, who works with Alexandra Paul's Sabrina Carver to find the missing artistic masterpiece, "The Night Watch." They go around the world to Europe and Hong Kong to find it. Supporting cast actors, William Devane and Rolf Saxon do an admirable job in playing agents. The scenery in the film overshadows the plot. There is a budding chemistry and romance between Graham and Carver but predictable.

In this sequel to "Death Train" both "Michael Graham" (Pierce Brosnan) and "Sabrina Carver" (Alexandra Paul) return as two agents working for U.N.A.C.O (the United Nations Anti-Crime Organization) who are assigned to a case that involves the theft of the famous painting "The Night Watch" by Rembrandt. What they don't initially realize is that there is more to the story than this because the person behind these thefts, "Martin Schraeder" (Michael Shannon) has developed a computer chip which can eavesdrop on any phone conversation in the world. Not only that but this device can also kill any person who has their ear to a phone set as well. And since he is an avid art-collector "The Night Watch" was simply payment by a foreign government for the use of his device. Anyway, rather than detail any more of the movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this wasn't a bad sequel to the previous film "Death Train" (aka "Detonator"). Now, while I like both Pierce Brosnan and Alexandra Paul there didn't seem to be much chemistry between the two and it caused the film to seem a bit synthetic at times. No doubt the fact that this was a "made-for-television" movie had something to do with it. Still, I liked the different locations (Amsterdam and Hong Kong) and I have seen much worse in my time. That said I thought it was an okay sequel and I rate it as average.

"Night Watch" is the follow-up to "Death Train", made 2 years earlier, but while Pierce Brosnan and Alexandra Paul play the same characters, they act more like spies and less like commandos this time around. It's fun noting all the parallels this movie, and Brosnan's character in particular, has to the James Bond series: he is an experienced secret agent; he regularly travels worldwide; he assumes a fake identity as a cover; he is given a watch equipped with all sorts of gadgets ("it does more than tell the time, eh?"); he visits the casino and cleans up the joint; he even orders a vodka martini; and of course he gets involved in fights and chases. The main difference is that Brosnan doesn't have the perfectly polished appearance of Bond here; he has unkempt hair and a long mustache. Alexandra Paul is (of course) gorgeous and tough and knows how to defend herself in moments of danger. The two stars get an enjoyable chemistry going and if Brosnan hadn't been cast as Bond the very same year, I could see them doing more films together. Like its predecessor, "Night Watch" is a medium-scale action film that knows its limitations, has some exciting action sequences, and provides more than passable entertainment to fans of the genre. (***)

This is not a great film. It's certainly no Where Eagles Dare and it's not even a Puppet on a Chain. And if you were hoping for a Brosnan film in the style of Goldeneye or The Thomas Crown Affair, forget it. The cast deserve better, but if you ignore the star names and don't set your expectations too high, it's an OK TV action flick.

It wants to be a (low-budget) Bond movie with glamorous locations and a series of action sequences to make you forget a paper-thin plot, but there's no finesse to it, it's all a bit pedestrian. The dialogue creaks, the accents are all over the shop, and the direction uneven. There's several nods to Puppet on a Chain, with a lot of action set on the canals of Amsterdam, and I suspect that Brosnan had already been cast as Bond before filming the casino scene (Nightwatch came out a month before Goldeneye).

The main problem with the film is that it all hangs on the relationship between Brosnan and Paul, which has little chemistry and is badly developed. I've not read the book but it feels like a fairly minor female character has been expanded to accommodate Paul at the height of her Baywatch fame, when just following the original story was at the limits of the scriptwriter's capabilities - and writing decent dialogue was waaay beyond him.

Despite all that it rattles along at a reasonable pace, it's a passable way to spend 90 minutes if you don't expect too much of it.

This has to be the worst movie ever made, Ed Wood come back All is forgiven.

I thought by renting this movie it was going to be a good spy/action movie BUT alas what I got has to be on the list for the worst movies ever made. From what I can make out this movie is about a stolen painting. I really don't know what it was about as after 10 minutes of this movie I decided to go out into the back yard and watch the grass grow.

Mr. Brosnan you should be ashamed of yourself for making this DUD