Stanley Baker and Hardy Krugar are the keys to the ups and downs of "Chance Meeting." The flashbacks are a drag, but at least they're necessary to the plot. And the hesitant, rather clunky ending doesn't help either. Nor does the imbalance between the central character (Hardy) and the convincing supporting cast.
But to the degree "Chance Meeting" succeeds, it does so via Stanley Baker's riveting crack detective. Not only is he in charge of the case, but of his role, his acting and, it seems, the movie itself. Who can imagine it without him? His absence from the flashbacks is the film's loss (Michiline Presle's acting saves them, however). Even when his given lines and plot twists let him down, he hangs in, his acting canceling the script's shortcomings in the same way his detective's s nasal spray routine gets him through doubts and challenges. But if Baker's strikingly in command, he seems all the more so because this is what the protagonist suspect lacks.
Whether Krugar's role, direction, or acting (probably all three) is at fault, there's no doubt that it's misaligned and unappealing. Perhaps there's more of the theatre than the cinema in his 'Angry Young Man' portrayal. Too often he seems bratty, defiant, manipulative, self-pitying, and generally obnoxious. His superior quips and mockery of his "bourgeois" female art buyer (his "chance" encounter) and subsequent "lover," offers immediate proof of his rudeness, and galling character. He comes off as a boy among adults, the least real of all the actors, and the most stereotypical. To boot, he seems more the hipster artist than the working class painter, more the mod misogynist than the avant-garde rebel, and more the pretentious charlatan than a convincing artist. Thus his disconnect from any inner reality, from his imposing pursuer, and from "Chance Meeting" itself.
