Look I get what they were going for - old style war time sob story - but I don't think Peter Hyams studied them enough. Or was forced to compromise.
It's not his fault Harrison Ford and Lesley Ann Down have no charisma, or Down can't emote despite her beauty. I know he originally cast Kris Kristofferson and Genevieve Bujold. Harrison Ford isn't bad.
It is his fault that he had them meet and get it on with her married to a man who is not only played by dashing Chris Plummer, but he's shown to be kind and caring and a lovely father (to Patsy Kensit who shines in a nice little scene). He's also got a sexy job - training spies. I mean, that's not dull.
It's also his fault they don't give Down anything sympathetic - some vague nursing scenes. She's not even that involved a mother.
You got why Celia Johnson cheated in Brief Encounter. She was dull, had a dull husband, never fell in love before, found this guy and bang.
You don't get Down and Ford here. She's hot and glamorous and so's her husband. So she just wants to root Ford for a wartime thing. Which is fine, but that's not what the movie should be.
It's Hyam's' fault they pull focus to Ford and make the last third an action film - not a bad one either, with Nazi undercover scenes reminiscent of Ford and Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Ford again as someone who can't speak English). And it's heart this is really an action /spy movie - there's spy training sequences with Plummer, talk of a spy. It even rips off The Great Escape motorcycle chase.
They get away with Plummer happening to go on a mission with Ford - not so much with convenient flak whiping out everyone on the plane except for them.
The cast includes reliables like Alec McCowen, John Ratzenberger, Shane Rimmer and Richard Masure. There's fat person in it - Hyams films often had them. Ford's co pilot is Michael Sacks from Slaughterhouse Five. Lush John Barry score.
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