CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

SnoopyStyle CIA operative Miles Kendig (Walter Matthau) meets his opponent in the Soviet intelligence in Europe. Despite foiling a Soviet drop, his supervisor Myerson (Ned Beatty) is angry that he allowed the Soviet to escape. Myerson sidelines him and promotes his protégé Joe Cutter (Sam Waterston) in his place. He reconnects with old flame Isobel Von Schoenenberg (Glenda Jackson) and decides to write a tell-all memoir about his CIA activities. Myerson fears CIA secrets being exposed. Kendig plays a cat-and-mouse game to exact revenge.I really like Myerson destroying his own house. I was hoping for more of that. I couldn't really follow what he's doing half the time. There is a light fun sensibility to the proceedings. Even if I don't love it, this has a good cast and it has its moments.

Rich Wright I love films where a smart guy outwits a bunch of buffoons in authority. Walter Matthua plays the veteran CIA agent who decides to resign in a blaze of glory, by revealing all the secrets of his occupation via a book. He leads his former colleagues on a merry dance throughout Europe and America, one step ahead of his dim-witted pursuers all the way. He pauses only to flirt with a very sexy Glenda Jackson, before she turned into a shrieking harridan of an MP. Humiliate your stuff shirted bosses AND have a lot of fun doing it? Am I jealous or what...The script crackles with funny dialogue and ludicrous situations, and as Matthua's plans become more convoluted, so the entertainment factor increases by a notch. He's like the funny uncle I never had (Sorry to my two present incumbents, but it's true) and his sheer presence in every scene is almost enough to make you grin. Give me this guy over 007 any day. 7/10

TxMike I found this one on streaming Netflix, a real gem of a movie, every scene was absolutely interesting.Walter Matthau was almost 60, and that seems to be the age of his character, Miles Kendig, seemingly considered the best of the CIA agents. In the opening scene, to establish his character, he is in Germany and notices some interesting encounters in the crowd during an Octoberfest celebration. As the Russian spy exits the venue, Kendig confronts him, explains that he has photos, and demands the microfilm spy photo cartridge, in return he will "overlook" his being there.But Ned Beatty as Myerson is the younger, ambitious, division chief back in Washington. He isn't happy that the Russian spy is let go. So he sentences Kendig to a desk job, a menial filing job, until his retirement. But Myerson has skeletons in his own closet.Kendig decides not to get mad, but to get even. He basically fails to report to work and after a few days they begin to wonder where he was. In fact he was in Salzburg, Austria, visiting his girlfriend, rich widow Glenda Jackson as Isobel. Kendig decides to write a tell-all book about the CIA and in particular about the few he wants revenge against. He copies and sends the first chapter to a number of places, including Moscow and Washington.So most of the movie is about slick, calm Kendig always staying one or two steps ahead of the CIA who are trying to hunt him down. At each new location in hiding he writes another chapter and mails it to all the same places.Good movie, good story, good characters.SPOILERS: As the story is getting to its conclusion Kendig, also a pilot, buys an old plane outside London and tells one of the agents he will fly it to mainland Europe, because he knows all the normal exits from England are being monitored. They end up chasing him in a helicopter, and arrive over the cliffs of Dover. Then the airplane explodes over the water, Kendig is presumed dead. But we see that he was actually on land, flying by remote and had set off the explosives. At the very end we see him in a disguise, in a book store, his book "Hopscotch" is a best seller. He is with his girlfriend, whom he had given power of attorney before he disappeared, so they are set to live the good life.

cellmaker The great thing about this film is the nonchalant and natural way the actors have fun with the film. Matthau, Jackson, Waterston, and Beatty all play their parts with great ease and sense of a good time. The problem is that the story is simply too thin and the characters don't evolve. There are many scenes, but they fail to build up any sort of complexity; instead they are basically repeats of the same idea over and over. The characters are given no chance to move beyond their initial (albeit charming) characterizations.Do we know anything about any character after their first scenes? Not really. We're given delightful cartoons and then they are set to work on a plot. Anyway, the film showcases some great talent, but don't expect to remember much a couple of weeks later.