Matrixston
Wow! Such a good movie.
Console
best movie i've ever seen.
DKosty123
Just when I thought I had seen every Newman movie, this one popped up. When I saw Paul Newman and James Mason in the cast, I thought I would be looking at a near classic. Despite the caliber of talent in the cast, they are let down by a lackluster script.The looks and scenery here are good. The biggest problem with this John Huston directed film is choppy sequences. I found several times where the scene changes made little sense and seemed to lose my way in the film. As I was watching the film commercial free, I was surprised how this happened.The spy story is filmed in the UK and Ireland and the scenery is good. Newman is okay and since this is PG an actress turns down his request for "a poke." The film opens with James Mason making a speech in Parliment. Then we go into the cloak and dagger plot.It just never really gets off the ground which is too bad, though I think the problem has to be the script, unless this novel is just bloody dull. That might be why they beat up Newman in one sequence, just to liven up the film a bit.
SimonJack
Paul Newman is the hero in this 1973 British espionage thriller. He is Rearden, an undercover agent who goes from one ID to another, with appropriate accent changes. The movie doesn't a have large cast, but all are very good in their roles. Dominique Sand is one of the main players, Mrs. Smith (code name for the daughter of Mackintosh). James Mason is Sir George Wheeler. Harry Andrews is Mackintosh. Michael Hordern is Mr. Brown. One gets a sense of the cloak and dagger early on. And, one can guess that if Newman and Andrews characters are the good guys, this is another one of those James Mason roles as culprit. Other than that, the story has some good intrigue, with modest action and some chase scenes. The ending is a surprise. The movie is based on a 1971 Novel by Desmond Bagley, "The Freedom Trap." This is the only film success of his four novels that were made into moves. The movie has some nice scenic shots of sites in Europe. It was filmed in Ireland, Malta, London and Liverpool. "The MacKintosh Man" is a fun mystery that most should enjoy.
MrOllie
Firstly, I apologise to fans of Maurice Jarre but I thought the soundtrack to this film was dreadful. There where some scenes in the film which I found to be so annoying purely because very loud zither music was blasting out. In one scene Paul Newman is looking out of a window onto Irish moorland with music reminiscent of The Third Man or Zorba The Greek deafening our eardrums. I thought quieter more sombre music would have been appropriate so as to create tension and atmosphere, but certainly not a zither. This could have been brought in when we are transported to Malta. Anyway, apart from the music I found it an okay film as Paul Newman's character Reardon is hired by MacKintosh a British Intelligence boss (Harry Andrews) to locate a gang who are helping prisoners to escape from jail. Reardon gets himself sent to prison and eventually escapes via the gang he has been hired to find. Paul Newman has a go at a Australian accent in this movie but it doesn't last very long. Overall, although I found this film lacking in suspense it does have some action and there are far worse ways to spend an evening than watching this.
Dave from Ottawa
Desmond Bagley's tightly plotted thriller about a man who escapes from prison with the help of a gang and then finds himself on their wrong side is loosely adapted here and not very well. The idea is a clever one and makes for an excellent suspense thriller in print; in any good thriller, the character is cut off from aid and isolated in the middle of a dangerous situation, and making the central character a fugitive in the company of thugs who mistrust him does this very well. Unfortunately, much of the tension-filled atmosphere of the book is lost here as the story becomes a murky riddle built around a not-very-interesting main character. Newman effectively conveys that he is clearly more than he seems, but the movie has trouble turning that into viewer interest. The grim drizzly look of the movie is its best feature, but even that seems coincidental and not organically connected to the storytelling. There were worse movies made that year, but better ones too.
