The Trouble with Spies

At the British Intelligence Service's "Dirty Tricks Division" Angus Watkins (Robert Morely) details the flow of KGB drugs from the island of Ibiza that find their way to British miliary bases. The soviets have developed a new truth serum based drug and the division arranges for bumbling recruit Appleton Porter (Donald Sutherland) as lead agent for Operation: Cornfield which Porter is made to believe is focused on locating a missing agent George Trent at the British hoarding house The Royal Rose in Ibiza while his actually purpose is to be used as bait to find the drug.

The Trouble with Spies (also titled The Trouble with Spys for marquee reasons) is a 1987 spy spoof written, directed, and produced by Burt Kennedy and based on the book Apple Spy in the Sky by Marc Lovell one of a series of comedic novels featuring the character of Appleton Porter. Kennedy acquired the rights to the novel as well as several other Appleton Porter novels (no doubt with a mind on making this a series) and set up the film as Home Box Office (HBO) with the film serving as the company's first film production. The film was completed in 1984, but sat on a shelf for three years before De Laurentis Entertainment Group picked up regional distribution rights to the film and upon release the film only made $200,000 against a $6 million budget before fading into obscurity. The movie has only ever been released on VHS and has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray. The movie commits the greatest sin any comedy can: being unfunny and boring.

While Donald Sutherland is a good actor and has shown a strong penchant for both drama and humor, Sutherland is massively miscast as a bumbling British spy and despite the film seemingly setup as a comedic farce Sutherland's take on Appleton Porter doesn't really have a clear identity as a character with him not really bumbling enough to create a memorable dummy as the movie wants him to be. When you compare Sutherland's Appleton Porter to memorable nitwits like Don Adams' Maxwell Smart or Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau Sutherland plays the character way too grounded and close to reality and even if this had been the original choice of Michael Caine I'm not convinced it would've worked there either. But Sutherland's take on Appleton isn't the only problem as Burt Kennedy's script and direction is way too slack with too many dead spots between gags and not enough tension or rapid fire pacing to keep the audience from drifting off. The only amusement the film managed to get from me was with some half hearted smirks involving Sutherland's interactions with a parrot and a dog and there's nothing that any of the actors do that engages on any level.

The Trouble with Spies is a leaden would-be spy spoof that just doesn't work. Donald Sutherland is miscast playing a bumbling fool who isn't all that bumbling in the final portrayal, Kennedy's direction and script is lacking in punch and pacing, and none of the jokes land. There's a reason this has been mostly forgotten.

Many Big names in this spy caper. Although there are more spies than caper. They work very hard to get the jokes across. Angus (Robert Morley) sends Porter (Donald Sutherland) on a mission to Ibiza. Ned Beatty and Ruth Gordon are guests staying at the hotel. Lucy Gutteridge plays the hotel owner. Greg Sierra (from Barney Miller) is the po-po who shows up to question the guests. It's listed as a drama, but everyone tells jokes, and then we pause a couple seconds to give us time to laugh. If we really wanted to. I can see why this gets very low ratings on imdb... the script needed a tune-up, in spite of all these big names. And not much meat on the plot. Was the novel really this light, or was too much left on the editing floor? And the opening title was mis-spelled: Spys instead of Spies. That shows the attention to detail this film got. And for a hotel full of spies, no-one even tries to act normally.. they are always talking about what all the other guests may or may not be up to. No surprises. No plot turns. It goes blandly along. Just lacks the spy-adventure that makes us want to see what's coming next. Directed by Burt Kennedy. Novel by Marc Lovell. This seems to be an HBO production.

this is just terrible. It has an impressive cast but wow, this thing stinks on ice. I was prompted to hit the net looking for what could have been going on in Sutherland's life to set off such a stink bomb in what is otherwise a stellar career. He looks thin. He isn't really in character, he's just phoning it in. Some of the supporting cast look and act like they're from Hammer studios. He doesn't connect with them at all. Ruth Gordon has a few moments that help remind us what acting is supposed to be like, even with the shoddy material she's given to work with. Overall, this thing looks done on the super-cheap: sets are flimsy feel like a sound stage, lighting design looks almost fluorescent, actors are poorly made up with blotchy uneven makeup, and the comic bits of business are straight out of a Three Stooges matinée flick (check out the street scene where he nearly gets run over, in the beginning). It was so painful to watch that I just had to bail. What I cannot fathom is how this thing was put together to start with, I mean was he doing this as a favor to the director? He couldn't possibly have been doing it for some quick money (assuming he was broke or a drug addict or something else leading to dire straits)--there was obviously NO money involved in this flick. His career has been on an even keel, he never went into the dumps like Micky Ruorke or Dennis Hopper. If he didn't do it as a favor to a has-been one-trick pony director, then it's a complete MYSTERY to me. You'd have to be pretty drunk to watch this thing. And even that is iffy.

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.

British spymaster Robert Morley gets incompetent spy Donald Sutherland to go to Ibiza, when a new drug developed by the Russians is being sold.

It's based on Marc MacShane's novel APPLE PIE IN THE SKY, one of fourteen comic spy novels about the incompetent Appleton Porter. Burt Kennedy wrote and directed the movie, and he hired such reliable comedy performers as Ned Beatty, Ruth Gordon (in her last movie appearance), and Robert Morley. The result is singularly free from much humor. Oh, you may find it funny to watch Morley tell Sutherland what an idiot he is without Sutherland noticing, or Sutherland disguising himself in immense facial hair and a Hawaiian shirt, but it's all done in a rather straightforward fashion, with Sutherland lucking into surviving by pure chance. Even location shooting in Ibiza doesn't help.