O Espião

I was looking forward to this as I thought it might be a solid spy thriller that I missed. I couldn't have been more wrong. The acting, by almost everyone except maybe Ekman, Jr. was embarrassing to watch, and the staging and direction were similarly bad. I can't get over how weak the acting was. It was like watching a home movie made for a high school class.

After the first 20 minutes of the movie I feared I had bought a cheap soft sex movie in which somehow, mysteriously Dennis Hopper and Hardy Krüger appeared.

After the first half hour it became clear that "The Inside Man" is just a normal Thriller (although lacking any thrill) with outstandingly lousy acting. Even Hopper and Krüger don't look any better than anybody in a school play.

Although this is a Swedish movie, the film is done in English. But the accents of all the actors are way too strong to make this an advantage. Of course Dennis Hopper has his American accent and Hardy Krüger is speaking with a strong German accent. This is the only movie I've ever seen which works better in the dubbed version!

none out of ***** Stars!

AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

This film is not as bad as you might think by reading the other user comments. Of course The Inside Man is not original or artistic thriller, but I think it is far more better than an average thriller. The production values are not high, so the filmmakers haven't even try to make spectacular action-scenes. And that's good. Otherwise the film could have been unintended humorous.

And I don't agreed what people say about the accents. Gösta Ekman's 'Swenglish' doesn't disturb me. Ekman is a charismatic actor and I like the way he talks. And i't's great to see him with such great stars as Hopper and Krüger. But I agreed with those who think that the role of Thomas Kallin should have played by someone else than Kåre Mölder. Rolf Lassgård would have been suitable for that part.

In 1981, after the successful test of a submarine tracker device developed by the Swedish scientist Paul Mandell (Hardy Krüger) and sponsored by the US government through his representative Miller (Dennis Hopper), his industry is totally burned and the laser device is stolen. Stig Larsson (Gösta Ekman) from the Swedish Secret Agency suspects of an inside job and brings the Swedish Marine Thomas Kallin (Cory Molder) to investigate Paul undercover as his driver. The naive Kallin is double-crossed but continues his investigation while Larsson finds the truth about the heist.

"Slagskämpen" is dated in 2008, with Cold War and diskettes, but it is not a bad thriller. The story has a surprising twist when the whole plot is disclosed to Stig and the acting is reasonable. The shameful Brazilian DVD costs only US$ 4,00, but does not have subtitles in Portuguese. The option for those that can not understand English is to watch the movie dubbed in Portuguese. Shame on "Weekend Distributor"! My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Informante" ("The Informer")

Swedish/British co-production of a young Swedish boxer who is framed and forced into an inside agent mission in the '80s continuing cold war in 'neutral' Sweden. Based on a fairly successful novel by Swedish writer Harry Kullman, it fails on most accounts. Cheap production values not used to their advantage plus clumsy, deftless direction sink this agent thriller, despite some tight suspense scenes... And as a native Swede, hearing my compatriot actors spouting really dodgy English accents just doesn't help much. To be honest, I haven't seen it since its release year, so I might enjoy it more on a re-watch to dig it on a campy, '80s nostalgia level!

3 out of 10 from Ozjeppe