Il mio nome è Modesty

I have grown up reading Modesty Blaise, both the comics and the books, and she truly is a heroine to me. Although not being a great fan of Quentin Tarantino I anyway was interested to hear a few years back that he was considering making a film of her: could he finally give Modesty a nice big screen treatment she's worthy of? I heard of 'My Name Is Modesty' a few months ago and checked the stars it had been given here, and wasn't too surprised to find out the score was not too high, since beloved characters often have hard time melting the fans' heart if not done exactly right. So I decided not to read any reviews and see the film instead, and well, I just finished watching it, and I'm stunned, and sad, and yeah, pretty furious, too. Sad and furious of giving over an hour of my time seeing something so fabulous as Modesty Blaise-character being turned into a film that has nothing to give to a viewer or a fan.

It seems that almost everything about this film is sub-par and unprofessional, although I must admit seeing some actors in other films earlier where they were fine so I can't blame them. But the screenplay and the directing... my god, why even make this kind of crap with production values slightly bigger than your average TV-film but done much worse? I don't know the background of this film and actually I really don't want to know, but I just can't help wondering that how on earth could Tarantino with a straight face tell that he loves Modesty and then put his name on this? He just lost a huge amount of respect in my eyes. The director was not the right man for this job and I can honestly thank him for ruining my night.

I give this film 3 stars and those stars go to the actors and the technical quality which could've been worse. The other seven stars missing are what this film was not good at. Oh well, hopefully at some point there will be a serious production of The Modesty Blaise Movie that has some other goals than to steal money from the Modesty fans. Although if people like Tarantino are the ones making the decisions I'm not holding my breath.

If you are a Modesty Blaise fan, you will know if you have watched this film its miles better than the strange sixties one! but it is a rather low budget film, well almost a no budget film in fact.

The problem that Miramax the owners of the rights to make a Modesty Blaise film had was they could not agree on a script for the big budget film version of Modesty and their rights to make a film were about to run out. In order to keep the film rights they had to make a film, and this is it.

In the past such a film would get shown for one night in the middle of nowhere to show it had been made and shown, and then they would bury it in the film company's vaults never to be see again. The only one they wanted you to see was the big budget version they hope to make soon as they had a script they could agree on. However with with DVD rentals and sales, their is alway the chance to make some money on a DVD of the low budget version however little it cost to make (and this one was shot in 18 days with a director hired one week before shooting !!).

However I like it, its not the film of Modesty Blaise I would have expected to see, but it sticks to Modesty's history reasonable well, and for fans the icing on the cake is a 40 minute interview with Peter O'Donnell in the DVDs extras, as well as an annoying one with Quentin Tarantino and his buddy the director at their most infantile. By the way, Quentin Tarantino hopes to direct the big budget version when, and if ever it gets made.

Rented and watched this short (< 90 minutes) work. It's by far the best treatment Modesty has received on film -- and her creator, Peter O'Donnell, agrees, participating as a "Creative Consultant." The character, and we who love her, are handled with respect. Spiegel's direction is the best he's done to date, and the casting was very well done. Alexandra Staden is almost physically perfect as a match to the original Jim Holdaway illustrations of Modesty. A terrific find by whoever cast her! Raymond Cruz as a young Rafael Garcia was also excellent. I hope that Tarantino & co. will go on to make more in the series -- I'm especially interested to see whom they'd choose to be the incomparable Willie Garvin!

There was a Modesty Blaise film in the 60s, and Quentin Tarantino produced this low budget version to preserve the rights until he could direct a big budget film.

It stars Alexandra Staden as Modesty. No shame in not knowing who she is, as she has no great credits.

More likely, you will recognize Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau (Nightwatch, "Game of Thrones"), or Raymond Cruz (Training Day, "The Closer"), or even Eugenia Yuan (The Eye 2, 3 Extremes II).

Lots of talking and little action until the very end. Staden is just a bit too skinny to be believable.

I had a problem as soon as Alexandra Staden appeared on screen. I feel that whoever cast her in the lead role has never read a Modesty Blaise novel. It spoiled the movie for me - I didn't finish watching it. She is the antithesis of the Modesty Blaise character. If she had a full auto pistol in each hand I still couldn't take her as a serious threat to anyone. The character as developed by Peter O'Donnell was a sexy but very fit, active, and martial arts trained woman. A strong woman, tough and resourceful. A woman who could fight a man on a physical basis. Ms Staden looks weak and scrawny, the type of woman a determined five year old could beat into submission. No muscle tone and no athleticism. Possibly as I read so much, my impression regarding series characters become rather indelible.