Icon

"Icon" was a fun, if long, miniseries. Patrick Swayze plays Jason Monk, who is an ex-CIA agent. As usual, he's roped into one last case. Here, it's by Nigel (Michael York). His assignment is to take down presidential hopeful Igor Komarov (Patrick Bergin). Igor wants to rule the world. I'm not kidding.

Thankfully, the movie is full of action. Patrick Swayze does a good job, but in some scenes he looks very old. Patrick Bergin goes over the top. I think he perfected his Russian accent by watching Natasha on "Rocky and Bullwinkle". Michael York is his usual professional self. The standout performance is by Jeff Fahey as a presidential aide.

In the end: If you don't mind the 3-hour running time, it's worth watching. If you can, take a look at the foreign trailer! For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

Frederick Forsyth's books are always so intricately plotted, with twists and turns, and usually a great surprise ending. This adaptation had none of that.

So much of what was great in the book (the history of Monk and the betrayed agents; the plot to influence the outcome of the Russian election) were completely missing in this adaptation. Instead, there's this completely new plot about bio-weapons that was a yawner.

Forsyth's protagonists always operated in the shadows, forever just slightly beyond the reach of the antagonists. The joys of his books have always been the machinations of carrying out their mission. This film resigned itself to gunfights and car chases early on.

Swayze's Monk might as well have hung a sign around his neck saying "I AM A SECRET AGENT" for all the attention that he called to himself during the film. And with all of that attention, the amount of time that it took the bad guys to catch up to him was surprising.

Granted there was some energy to this film, which is why I'm giving it a "3" instead of a "1". It was also great to see some underutilized pros like Patrick Bergin, Ben Cross, Michael York, and Barry Morse.

I hope that someday, someone will once again do justice to a Forsyth film adaptation like "Day of the Jackal" did.

I just have watched Icon on DVD and despite being a great book, the movie is a weak substrate from it. Those responsible for the writing should be banished to Siberia. Why they maul the great story with all kind of C-film subploys which are totally irrelevant to the story is totally beyond me.

Yet the filmmakers and cast do there best to make something out of it, but at the end the film was not satisfying at all.

Can someone please make a decent movie out of this to show how it is done. I'm sure that the crowds will rally for such a masterpiece novel turned into a book, not into a cheap C-movie.

I haven't read the book Icon, but I understand it's quite different from the film. One of the reasons may be because it was a TV movie and didn't have a budget for the grand finale that was described in one of the reviews; another reason may be because most TV movies are not written to the same level as feature films. Given some feature films I've seen, that's pretty scary, but there we are.

Icon is the story of a retired US Operative, Jason Monk (Patrick Swayze) who comes out of retirement to return to Russia and bring to justice Komarov (Patrick Bergin), an enemy responsible for the death of Monk's fellow operatives years earlier.

Komarov is now running for President in the new Russia. Working with a member of the Russian police force (Annika Peterson), he discovers Komarov's true agenda, which includes wiping out ethnic groups using biological warfare.

Monk has an additional reason for returning to Russia - he has a daughter there and has learned that his wife died of cancer. He hasn't seen his daughter since she was a little girl; she's now 17.

This was a solid, if not overwhelmingly thrilling, miniseries that held my interest. And the cast was solid: Barry Morse, who was something like 88 when he did this miniseries; Ben Cross, Jeff Fahey whom I always think of as my elevator buddy; and Michael York.

Now, why do I call Jeff Fahey my elevator buddy? About 30 years ago, when he was on One Life to Live, we were on an elevator together. Around 2000, I went to an opening of some kind, and as I walked onto the elevator to leave, Jeff Fahey entered.

Anyway, this was pretty good. Sad to see Patrick Swayze, gone too soon.

I accidentally stumbled across this flick while i was renting a couple of movies. At first i decided to pass it but after seeing swayze's name on the cover i thought to myself that it would be fun to see him in an action movie again. Having the warm memory of roadhouse in the back of my mind i snatched it. Well to be honest it wasn't that bad of a b-movie (mini series?) and it also wasn't that good. It basically is about a chemical terrorist hit in Russia and Swayze is brought from retirement to solve it. It at least seemed they filmed the movie in Russia which they probably did since i live next door to the country and I'd say it was pretty authentic. Nicely done there. The cast did a fine job considering what they were given to work with. Action scenes with swayze were as good as the movie got. Nice to see that he's still in good shape and able to nicely outperform most of the old-timers in Hollywood. The man's in his mid-fifties. If you like Patrick Swayze go rent this. If not, then i recommend not to bother just for the movie.