Agente Zero-Zero Nada

The movie doesn't know if it wants to be a spy spoof or a serious spy story. It fails at both. It fails in the romance area too. The only good part was the topless beach scene.

There are two VERY bad things about this film that made me assume it would stink. First, after being made it sat for three years...probably the best determinate that it is a bad movie. Second, Michael Caine was offered the lead....and he refused it. Now to put it in context, the great actor Michael Caine made quite a bit of crap in the 1980s...films he admitted he only made for the money. But apparently, there was a limit!

Donald Sutherland plays a bumbling spy...sort of like Inspector Clouseau mixed with Johnny English. But these two characters are COMIC characters...but Sutherland's bumbler is played straight. He's sent on an assignment where he is assumed he will die...which is why they picked him because he's so expendable. What follows is, bluntly put, pretty stupid with some of the most ridiculous and dumb murder attempts by the KGB (such as dangling a scorpion onto him in his room...even though scorpion bites are almost never fatal).

The bottom line is that several excellent actors (not just Sutherland but Ruth Gordon, for instance) are totally wasted due to a bad script and filmmakers who seemed indifferent about their 'craft'. Overall, a very bad beginning for HBO Pictures...but fortunately they learned from their mistakes and made some very nice films AFTER this one.

British officer porter in a mission in Ibiza, where his mate trent got missing. In a few scenes he should got killes, but he's glad, they failed. Mona, his host, turns out to work for the "usual tricks"-department of the KGB.

What a great "blast from the past"!! Totally love both Ruth Gordon and Donald Sutherland. Loved how incompetent the Russians were - and how the governments covered their a**es, so obvious today, even if covered up in the past.

I guess I need to add some more characters in order for this to be valid, so here goes....

why did we like the movie? First of all, we didn't see it when it first came out, so it was a first for us. Second, we liked most of the actors, and the synopsis looked interesting.

But, as stated above, we liked the premise and wanted to give it a chance. While some of the movie was a bit of a stretch, we liked it a lot, even though IMDB requires lengthy reviews, lmao.

Flatly directed spy comedy has no laughs, and Donald Sutherland is embarrassingly miscast. Only his romance with Lucy Gutterridge is kinda sweet. 88 minutes too long. *1/2 out of 4.