RipDelight
This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.
Kidskycom
It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.
FirstWitch
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
blanche-2
...because if I do, it will go way beyond spoilers."The Holcroft Covenant" is based on a Robert Ludlum book which went some 600 pages. Unfortunately it did not have a David O. Selznick at the helm, overseeing writers and scripts the way he did with Gone with the Wind. This was doomed to failure, although it is a John Frankenheimer film.The plot, for starters, is far-fetched even for those of us who don't mind suspending some reality. Michael Caine stars as Noel Holcroft, an architect living in New York who is contacted by a Swiss banker. He is told that his father, a financial adviser to Hitler whom his mother left and that he never acknowledged, has left him the executor of a trust worth $4.5 billion.The trust is to be used, according to the letter his father wrote him, to make restitution to victims of the Holocaust. There are two other people who will serve as advisors, sons of the men who went in on the covenant with Noel's father. One is Jonathan Tennyson (Anthony Andrews), whose sister Helden (Victoria Tennant) is also involved in bringing the covenant to fruition, and Erich Kessler, a conductor who changed his name from Jurgen Mass.Noel's mother (Lili Palmer) is against his involvement and begs him not to sign or even look into the matter. Turns out she's not alone. But some people have a vested interest in Noel signing the covenant - and they'll stop at nothing to get him to do it.This should have been an episode of Whom Do You Trust? The audience certainly doesn't know, which should keep the action exciting - instead, it's muddled and confusing.And why the officers made this covenant to accumulate for 40 years is beyond me - seems kind of a long time to wait for those reparations. And then there's the plot giveaway component I can't mention, which reminded me -- strongly -- of a much better, much more famous film done a decade earlier. I almost burst out laughing. I don't have to tell you what it is - you'll know it immediately.The acting is pretty bad. Sadly this was the wonderful Lilli Palmer's last film. She had a decent role and she does it as well as can be expected given the script, but it was a sad ending to an excellent career. When you look at the fact that Anthony Andrews' film career did not take off, nor did Victoria Tennant's -it's a little sad for all of them, most especially the marvelous John Frankenheimer.
krocheav
This muddled movie offers another insight into what happens when rather good film makers overstay their talents.The well known director, writers, and actors, all disappoint in a film that's terrible from start to finish. When a feature offers up the names of several writers (known for far better work) you could be forgiven for assuming that one of them, has been brought in to attempt to fix the mess of another - and here, it shows painfully. For a film from the mid eighties, it has the look of something made a decade earlier.Michael Cain playing Michael Cain, at times looks as if he's not sure if he is working on the right set (or understands the script). Other main leads are equally unconvincing. The only notable performance comes from the always reliable Lilli Palmer, who's simply wasted in her role as Cains mother. In one sequence the terrible script (and director) has her hysterically crying about her poor 'shop window' after a car has plowed into it...leaving several innocent by-standers lying tragically 'crushed to death ' in front of her! James Cann, did himself a huge favor when he walked out on this one.A marginally interesting original idea lurches from one unbelievable situation to the next within an unintentionally laughable screenplay adaptation. For those who don't want to take its serious plot seriously, it might pass with a push, but it'll be a big push. Sorry, but not this time. Local telecaster Gem Australia, who often run marvellous vintage classics put this to air as a very blotchy telecine transfer (as they unfortunately often do with some of their classics). It's poor when a HD Digital channel uses sub standard transfers. Looks like they just don't care. KenR.
fedor8
Another absurd thriller from Frankenheimer; almost a specialty of his, creating convoluted political thrillers that make little sense. The script's blatant disregard for logic must have made him fall in love with it immediately.The other three Nazi kids had known about the covenant since their childhood, and yet Caine somehow didn't have a clue. This is already the first glaring logic problem in THC. It is very difficult to believe that Palmer (Caine's mother) only found out about it when he did. That's almost impossible, given that practically everyone else knew. In fact, her behaviour suggests that she almost certainly knew. But that begs the next question: why the hell would she not tell Caine about it (much) earlier? If for no other reason than to warn him about it, giving him sufficient time to prepare for ensuing hoopla – and of course to increase his chances of survival.Are we to believe that Palmer was part of the conspiracy to kill her own son, a plan that had been abandoned by the anti-Nazi organization "Wolfsschanze" after the first attempt at Caine's life at the dock? It doesn't quite make sense. Palmer isn't portrayed as a zealous fanatic, ready to sacrifice her son's life at the drop of a hat, on some hunch (not even a certainty) that he might enable neo-Nazis to get that money. In fact, even if she WERE a zealot ready to allow his murder, then she would have had all the reasons in the world to tell him about the covenant years earlier, so that she could groom him in a proper way to make him avoid making errors that might lead to disaster, and to avoid having to assassinate him.This is not the only glaring idiocy in the relatively convoluted plot. It is hard for me to imagine that "Wolfsschanze", an apparently very serious and well-organized secret group, would be so utterly daft as to not suspect Tennant right after finding out that her brother had murdered their leader and Palmer. Did they really think that he could have been hiding his Nazi sympathies from his own sister for decades on end? Even Caine not ever suspecting her made little sense, except if we believed that he was a totally naïve imbecile.The writer tried to cover up for Caine's lack of suspicion by making him fall in love with Tennant, but that's a fairly dubious touch, too. After all, Caine and Tennant had only just met 3-4 days earlier, yet already he's "in lurve"? I could understand if an uneducated, low-IQ, wide-eyed, gullible 20 year-old fell head-over-heals so quickly and easily - but a successful, intelligent architect in his mid-40s, and surrounded with such sudden pressures and fears? Come on. Any half-way intelligent man would have grown suspicious after Tennant had professed her love for him – on the 2nd day since they'd met! Very sudden and highly suspicious; at this point I knew she was out to get him. Add to that all those billions waiting in the bank, and corpses piling up: what man would possibly not at least suspect her of some ulterior agenda. Perhaps not illogical, like the whole Lili Palmer business, but certainly quite far-fetched.The kidnapping was very obviously staged. I don't know whom the director was hoping to fool with that. In fact, Tennant's fake abduction simply made me more certain that she and her brother were the "baddies".The great irony is that Tennant is such a bad actress, a typical silver-spoon-in-mouth hand-her-a-movie-career-on-a-plate nepotist, hence for her to be playing a character that is so successfully deceptive (fooling everyone) is almost comical. She isn't as wooden as she normally is in her other movies, but definitely a semi-amateur. The less said about Mario Adorf being miscast as a CLASSIC ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR, the better. The man looks like a butcher, rugby player, or Welsh miner. They might as well have cast Ernest Borgnine or Lino Ventura for the role.The leader of "Wolfsschanze" using that rather silly "Nazi-test" on Caine: that was pretty shaky too. Ditto the fact that Tennant's brother would be so stupid as to leave the scene of a double-homicide without erasing or taking away the tapes that show him as the killer. All these years of planning, scheming, and everything else – and yet he makes this strictly amateurish error: far-fetched, dumb even.The premise that 4 and a half billion dollars could be used to destabilize the world with terrorism isn't far-fetched. However, the idea that this money could be used to destabilize the world to such an extreme extent that "a new strong leader" would then emerge – a Nazi at that – and take over the reigns, that is certainly foolish thinking, nothing that should have anyone too worried. If only it were that easy. Vast amounts of money can perhaps make Oscar winners out of crap like "Milk", but certainly not produce magic. Besides, how the hell did the trio of covenant creators know for sure that any of their offspring would follow the same political path as they did? In spite of all the absurd goings-on and very loose logic, THC is a fun movie, interesting from start to finish. Casting Caine in the lead certainly helped.
dscabicky
What in heaven's name was a talented director like John Frakenheimer doing involved is a mess of a movie like this? Clearly he was desperate for work but just as clearly his talent had ebbed at this point in his late career. 'Holcroft' is awful on so many levels it's difficult to know where to begin. The script is muddled and confusing. The dialogue is clunky. The music is incredibly annoying. The performances--including Caine's--are wooden. I never read the book but it can't have been as bad or boring as this film makes it out to be. Don't waste your time with this trash. It doesn't make a bit of sense and it's not even a little bit entertaining.
