SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Benoit Vanhees A leftist terror group erupts into the US Consulate in München, and takes a number of hostages, including Americans. The hardboiled team demands the immediate release of a number of fellow terrorist, otherwise the US hostages will be shot dead at a rate of one per hour. A "post Münich '72" discussion takes place between German and US spokesmen to determine what to do. As the terrorists' demands aren't met within the imposed deadline, one of the hostages gets executed in cold blood. The young woman who got shot dead was the girlfriend of a CIA computer specialist. But at the same time -strange coincidence- , the killer too is working for the CIA, and has infiltrated the terrorist cell. The boyfriend of the executed girl -although an "egghead" or CIA bureaucrat- wants to avenge her death by killing systematically all the members of the cell. He learns that they are hiding in Easter Europe. As the CIA doesn't seem to be inclined to help him, he uses some arm twisting techniques to force the Director of Central Intelligence to change his stance...The film certainly isn't bad, but at the same time I couldn't call it fantastic either. Therefor, the story is built on just too much coincidences and unlikely events. Also, the idea of the non-experienced CIA man managing to do unlikely things, exactly because he's no trained and therefor predictable field agent has been treated in a much more convincing way in "Three Days of the Condor".Christopher Plummer was doing a relatively nice job as Professor Lakos, but on the whole, I found the actors too neither sensational, neither incredibly bad. Same thing for the OST. That is -to me at least- the weak point of the movie: it is in almost all its aspects "just average", nothing more, nothing less.The strongest side of the movie is the excellent choice of locations. The chosen Austrian landscapes, and a few Skoda's here and really give the impression the movie has been shot somewhere in Eastern Europe.

dwpollar 1st watched 5/12/2007 - 4 out of 10(Dir-Charles Jarrott): OK spy drama with John Savage; who typically plays supporting characters; in the lead role. The movie starts with his significant other getting killed by what he thinks is a terrorist after they hold-up hostages in an American embassy in Germany asking for a couple of their cohorts to be released from prison. They plan to kill a hostage every 15 minutes until their demands are met and Savage's wife or girlfriend happens to be the first one and is shot, and then mysteriously the demands are then met. This "strangeness" is not explored much in the movie, but we find out why this happened in the last fifteen minutes. The focus is on Savage's character, who then blackmails the CIA, whom he works for as a code specialist(a kind of geeky position in the company), so they have to train him to hunt down the terrorists and he can have his sweet revenge. The CIA doesn't want this to happen and tries to stop him before he accomplishes his task. So, he's basically working on his own as an "Amateur" trying to hunt down these people, thus the title. Savage is OK in the lead, and the story keeps your interest but he doesn't have the charisma to carry a lead role -- especially one that requires a wide range of emotions like this one. The supporting cast is not very good or convincing and the plot seems to leave out things that could have fleshed-out the characters more so we could understand their plight and care for them more deeply. I don't particularly understand why this was done except that the director thought the actors couldn't pull it off or the studio wanted a shorter movie, but this kind of leaves the movie incomplete and makes for only a OK experience where it could have been much more.

Enrique Sanchez This is the movie that introduced me to international intrigue. For this, I owe it many things. It paved the way for me to appreciate several important historical points that have served me well in the ensuing years of my education.What attracted me to this movie was the aspect of a complete amateur being caught up in the world of terrorism. His utter frustration is handled and eventual involvement is treated, without a lot of glitzy, unnecessary gadgets or gratuitous or cartoonish (and unbelievable) violence.No, nothing of that is experienced in this movie. And thank goodness for that. The grittiness is real. There are no cardboard characters like Matt Damon and Tom Cruise battling European forces of evil. You feel for JOHN SAVAGE and his life. You care for him and his pain...you feel his frustrations and his victories.Yes, this is intrigue at its most real depiction (within the framework of a commercial movie.) Human life is important, cherished and defended. You will come from this experience with the idea of what a more realistic exposition of events can be.I recommend anyone who still loves intrigue done without a lot of CGI junk thrown in.

Hugh59 Typical freaking Hollywood anti-American nonsense! This movie takes place back when you had terrorist gangs from East Germany infiltrating into the West, robbing banks and killing business executives, then skipping back into the East. The movie deals with a botched CIA effort to infiltrate one of these terrorist groups which causes an innocent American civilian to get killed. The movie makes the CIA into the villain and actually has the KGB chief in East Germany (the guy controlling the murderous terrorists) as a sympathetic character. Well TICKLE ME HARD WITH A CHAINSAW! I WANT the CIA to have teams of assassins going around looking for fluking Al Qaeda operatives. If Bill Clinton had not been such a wimp(if he had REALLY believed that the USA was right to fight terrorists), he would have had Osama Bin Laden assassinated in the late 90s. Clinton missed SIX opportunities to kill Bin Laden...as a result, 3,000 Americans died.This is the same stupidity behind the remake of THE BOURNE IDENTITY. During a time when the country is at war, take a book in which the CIA represents the good guys and turn them into the bad guys! I spit at Hollywood!