All that's missing from the script is a big flashing light on the screen every time an important plot point is mentioned. Probably the worst script Michael Caines ever worked with and he'd just done Bullet to Beijing. Fortunately the direction's nearly as bad, but you still feel some sympathy for the actors, if not the characters. Still you will know that the Russian for Thankyou is spaseeba, it seems to be added to the end of every English sentence. Michael Caine's as watchable as ever but Harry Palmer should have stopped with Billion Dollar Brain, as sequels go this is slightly less worthwhile than the science.

Every time I woke up during this film there seemed to be Caine jumping in a car and rushing off somewhere.If it was trying to capture the magic of the first three Palmer films then it failed miserably,not just because they were the product of a different time and atmosphere, but because its a muddle to a point I really didn't have a clue what was going on, just a lot of cars buzzing about,old factories and the usual rat-tat-tat dialogue. While Caine was hungry for the fame in the first Palmer pictures and acted accordingly, he is not hungry anymore here and is obviously just Michael Caine acting as Michael Caine, but its not all his fault as he has no foil here to bounce off due to the dull co-stars.

What is wrong with movie writers, producers, and directors? There is a sizable market of baby-boomers who would love to see sequels of fondly remembered movies from the 60s, yet it seems that the powers-that-be are deliberately ruining virtually every opportunity to tap into that market. Granted the younger movie-going public has shown they have little or no attention span, but I have to believe that a good movie would appeal to enough of them to make some money. I cite (shudder) The Avengers and (retch) Wild Wild West as 2 of the worst offenders possible and the 2 90s Harry Palmer films aren't far behind them. Directors: WATCH SOME 60S MOVIES AND TRY TO RECAPTURE THE MAGIC. It is tough, if not impossible, to do, but you can do better than you have been doing. Using some of the original stars such as Michael Caine, Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Robert Conrad or whomever is still this side of the sod would be wonderful, but it still would require a good script. The 2 Harry Palmer movies don't get it. The music is wrong, the car and boat chases are wrong, the ambiance is wrong, the supporting cast is wrong, etc. Do better while there is still time.

It's hard to believe that Michael Caine would have affiliated with so poorly done a film, but there he is, all grins and deer in the headlights stare. The film, which was produced for Showtime, has the episodic pacing of a TV series pilot, marred by an average cast struggling with a sub-average script. The thin plot line about missing plutonium and a suspected art heist is filled out with endless shots of the most touristic sights of St. Petersburg, including two rival, and not very competent, gangs of the Russian mafia. It's fun for the scenery up to a point, but cliched to a frightening degree. Caine is good even when he's bad, but this is as lackluster as I have ever seen him.