The Saint is an action-spy movie starring Val Kilmer, Elisabeth Shue, Rade Serbedzija, Valeriy Nikolaev, Alun Armstrong, and Henry Goodman. It's based on a literary character and a TV show starring Roger Moore, kinda, because really the only things that appear in the movie are the name "Simon Templar" and the little dude with a halo as a stickpin. But I've never watched the show, so all I can do is judge the movie on its own merits.
To wit: A young orphan (Adam Taylor), being raised at a monastery in "the Far East", breaks out and leaves, and then years later grows up into a thief and master of disguise (Kilmer) whose alternate identities are all the names of Catholic saints. He uses women as shields and unwitting mules, and is trying to break $50 million to retire on.
Meanwhile, Russian billionaire-turned-would-be-president Tretiak (Serbedzija) discovers that Emma Russell (Shue) an American scientist working at Oxford has discovered the formula for cold fusion, and hires the Saint to steal it. The Saint (OK, his name is Simon Templar, but he doesn't use it for most of the movie) tracks her down and discovers she's played by Elisabeth Shue, and his trick of learning all about her to seduce backfires when they kinda seduce each other. He steals her formula anyway because Tretiak is happy to kill her if he doesn't (a question: why does Tretiak think that will matter to him? He initially assumes that Simon is trying to get more money out of him), Emma tracks him down in Russia because apparently going to Catholic school makes you an expert in recognizing saints' names, and wacky hijinks ensue as Simon and Emma try to get the hell out of Russia without getting shot by Tretiak's over-eager son Ilya (Nikolaev). In the end, all is well, Simon is still on the run but he has given up much of his money and fallen in love with Emma.
So, I like this movie, but I find it disappointing because it feels pasted together from a lot of different drafts and I can see the glue bubbles. Just as an example, Emma has a weak heart (and holy shit, Shue sells that in her performance), but towards the end of the movie she mentions that she hasn't needed a pill recently. This is a bit, but this particular Chekov's gun never fires. Simon mentions, in a really ham-handed bit of exposition, that you need to performance three miracles to be a saint, so given that, the obvious conclusion is that one miracle is the curing of Emma's heart...but nope. First miracle is that cold fusion works, second is Tretiak getting arrested, and third is Emma saying she loves him, which...none of those are miracles, and even in context they're kind of weaksauce.
There's evidently a version where Emma dies about three-quarters of the way through the movie and the third act is mainly Simon taking revenge on Tretiak and his son, and like, I'm no fan of fridging women characters like that, but it'd be interesting to see.
But, like I said, I do like the movie. The cast makes it. Kilmer is enigmatic and slick as Templar, Shue is perfect as Russel, and Serbedzija is quietly evil and enthusiastic as Tretiak (I remember lamenting when we watched this movie that you don't have to be as articulate and clever as Tretiak to become a populist favorite, apparently). I love the chemistry between Shue and Kilmer, and especially the astonished vulnerability that Simon shows their first night together, desperately wanting to abandon his Thomas More persona and just be honest with her.
It's a fun movie with some missed opportunities and a good cast, so that's a win overall.
My Grade: B-
Rewatch Value: High
Next up: Salt
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