11 replies to this topic

[tim partridge]

I saw some clips of this recently. It was, for the mopst part, seemingly really flatly made and directed, like Glen's Space Precinct episodes. Christopher Lambert was in it. Glen can still do action in his sleep (there's a brief but nevertheless top notch car chase) and much of it felt more Bond (and more exciting) than say DIE ANOTHER DAY. In that department the gritty action easily rivals the thrills of the first Bourne movie made a year later. Glen's typical workman like lack of irony is always refreshing amid the self awareness/self conciousness of today's action movies. However, the film seemed awfully out of touch, from the visuals right down to the choice of cheesy rock songs as source music (when the budget faux synth techno-orchestral score wasn't wallpapering away). Even Alec Mills' cinematography suffers in the interior sequences, looking very flat and floodlit, again much like Glen's Space Precinct episodes (which weren't even lit by Mills). To make matters worse, Maryam D'Abo is in it (ooh, "Bond reunion", yeah right), with an IMO dignity erasing topless scene. Christopher Lambert's in it. And Christopher Lambert's in it. Suffice to say nobody's probably ever heard of it (outside of scanning Glen's imdb credits and/or his autobiog book).

Has anyone actually seen this? While it seems dung it does leave me thinking that Glen still had another Bond in him, circa 2001, particularly given the direction that Eon went after DIE ANOTHER DAY. The clips I saw of POINT MEN were no less polished or impressive than anything by Martin Campbell outside of his Bond work.

[Royal Dalton]

I'm sure he could have done another Bond film around that time. A few years ago he was going to make a film called Skin of the Cat which would have starred Sir Rog as an aging cat burglar. But it obviously never got made.

To make matters worse, Maryam D'Abo is in it (ooh, "Bond reunion", yeah right), with an IMO dignity erasing topless scene.

After Xtro, I'm not sure she had a lot of dignity left to erase!

[Safari Suit]

I saw this in bargin bins in Morrisons a lot recently-ish. It seems to have gone now. I might have picked it up had I realised it was Glen effort.

Now Xtro, I have seen

[Blofeld's Cat]

The movie is truly atrocious, and only proves that his Bond movies were made by committee. If he was allowed to play a "real" director they would have been just as bad as Point Men.

[Safari Suit]

I wouldn't say that, no matter how bad it is. I doubt the budget, cast or even the script are of the same calibre they were on his Bond movies for a start.

[tim partridge]

Maryam's performance is notably much worse than it is in TLD.

[Blofeld's Cat]

I wouldn't say that, no matter how bad it is. I doubt the budget, cast or even the script are of the same calibre they were on his Bond movies for a start.

True, but it's probably all he good get his hands on. His previous movie to this was that turgid Columbus thingy and he certainly had the budget and cast. In any case The Point Men was the last movie he's directed so far.

[Loomis]

I'm amazed to learn that THE POINT MEN was a 2001 film. For some reason, I'd always thought it was a 1991 release.

The reason being that Maryam d'Abo looks as though she's just stepped off the set of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. Granted, she was only 41 in 2001, which is hardly ancient, but, still, she's "aged" incredibly well.

But THE POINT MEN, I'm afraid, has not. It beggars belief that its director had no fewer than five Bond outings under his belt (none of which I despise, BTW), as well as the $48 million-budgeted CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: THE DISCOVERY, for - with a painfully low budget (given by the IMDb as some $6 million, although that seems a gross overestimation) and looking about twenty years older than it actually is - you'd be forgiven for thinking that THE POINT MEN was the movie before the movie that got Glen the initial Bond offer.

Having said all that, THE POINT MEN is - for all its bargain basement stupidity - perfectly watchable fare, but strictly as brain-in-neutral escapist hokum chewing gum for the eyeballs. There are many much worse flicks out there, and former editor Glen does at least display an understanding of pace that's utterly lacking in the work of plenty of "better" directors. And I guess it's pretty cool that he was still directing at the age of almost seventy.

[glidrose]

Crap film.

[DavidJones]

A few years ago he was going to make a film called Skin of the Cat which would have starred Sir Rog as an aging cat burglar. But it obviously never got made.

 

When was this supposed to be? I've never heard anything about that!

Edited by DavidJones, 04 May 2014 - 07:44 PM.

[glidrose]

From 2001: "According to The World Entertainment News Network, ex-James Bond Roger Moore may reunite with his 007 director John Glen for an action caper entitled Skinning the Cat. Apparently taking a cue from his Bond predecessor Sean Connery's recent Entrapment, Moore would play a master cat burglar in Cat. So what's the catch? Moore's anti-hero has "mended his ways and starts returning the goods he's stolen. Along the way he meets a youngster and begins training him up as his apprentice. But of course along the way (Moore) manages to straighten him out." This sounds something like that Burt Reynolds' vehicle Breaking In. Apparently, John Glen has been busy coaxing his old star to return to the big screen. "Of course I wouldn't expect Roger to be leaping from roof to roof, but he's still in good shape and I'm sure he'd be up to a reasonably action-based film," Glen advised WENN. Glen has directed the Moore/Bond films For Your Eyes Only, A View to a Kill, and (let's all say this together now) Octopussy. Before directing the Bond series, Glen worked as an editor on them. He also edited Moore's non-Bond adventure flick The Wild Geese. Roger Moore's most recent big-screen ventures include Spice World and the Jean-Claude Van Damme "opus" The Quest."

[DavidJones]

Thanks for that, Glidrose, very interesting reading. I wonder what happened to this.