I think that if there was a hitparade of clichés this movie would hit most of them.Story of tragic children love, which leads to the main character being a human chameleon, who picks his names after Catholic saints until he's tasked with stealing formulas from lonely romantic scientists, only to fall in love with her and risking everything just to save her from the terrible villains (who, according to number of other clichés, are Russian). Of course, she searches for him, and once again, the star-crossed lovers are running for their lives. Of course the whole movie ends well - the thief escapes the clutches of Justice, and poof, happy ending.Giving the rating I did mostly because I like clichés and because I liked how villainy the villains were. Oh, and for Frankie. I really liked her character.

"You know, wearing that black suit and waving a big Japanese sword around does not make you the Saint.""Just play your part." Henry mumbled through the face cover waving his Katana around. He knew it was a Katana because he knew that kind of thing from the comics. Unlike Kristl who was illiterate because she had never read comics as far as he knew."And what part was that again?""You are the Russian lesbian who just caught me red handed while stealing a formula from your masters safe. It is the one that changes water into vodka. Just say something with that foreign accent of yours.""I don't play Russians very well. I am Austrian, that makes it a German accent, not a Russian one. And what is with the lesbian stuff all the time?" Kristl remarked."Well, your hair practically shouts lesbian." Henry said."What is with the hair? Why does it make me look lesbian?""It is shaved but for long hair on top and you painted it black and white, that hairstyle went out of fashion two decades ago. Only women pretending to be men would want to look like that." Henry said."I hate you!" Krisl fumed."Good, you can play the bad ass Russian better." Henry smiled and crouched in a fighting stance.Kristl face palmed and then said,"You are Simon Templar. An English gentleman thief. He never uses swords like that! Perhaps a saber or a cane, but not a weapon like that. Something stylish and English. You know: Roger Moore? Gentleman, under cooled humor, stiff upper lip, Rolls Royce.?""Yeah, yeah. Get on with it.""Oh god, you just don't look at all like him, nor speak like him, nor have the same humor, nor have the style. You are so not Simon Templar." Kristl groaned, "Just like Val Kilmer?" Henry said."Yeah, just like him." Kristl."Well, it would have not mattered to me, but it's not even an exciting movie." Henry put down the sword and removed his mask to reveal a grin."The action sequences are plain boring. People shooting at him seem to miss even at point blank.""It's pretty bad on any level." Kristl,"The whole romantic bit is so cringe worthy. And how the Russians are portrayed like a bunch of money grabbers. It was probably meant to be funny.""You know that they considered having Kurt Russell play James Bond at the time?""Oh? You mean Kurt -Snake Plissken- Russell? " Said Kristl."The grumpy anti hero from Escape From New York?" Kristl considered that for a minute."It is a joke." Henry laughed."He would have made a better Bond that Kilmer makes a Saint" Kristl said."It wasn't Kurt Russell they considered, it was Mel Gibson."

I'm a massive fan of all things Saintly. I have read all the Saint books, I own and have seen all the old RKO Saint movies from the 30's, 40's and 50's with Louis Hayward, George Sanders and Hugh Sinclair and own all the TV episodes from the 60's & 70's with Roger Moore & Ian Ogilvy. Only a few Saint items elude me. The very hard to find Simon Dutton Saint adventures from the late 80's, the Andrew Clarke one off TV Movie from 1987, the old radio shows from he 40's and 50's and the forgettable French movies of the 60's.Because of this, I was very wary about the Val Kilmer movie featuring the halo'd character of Simon Templar despite having Saint legend Robert S. Baker as executive producer. My fears were not without foundation.The character of Simon Templar as originally written by creator Leslie Charteris is an English Gentleman adventurer thief, he is known by reputation as a criminal with morals. He despises injustice, never preys on the innocent and only steals from people he refers to as the ungodly who have made their ill gotten gains by riding rough shod over anyone and everything. In this movie we have an American Templar (1st mistake), who commits high tech robberies for extremely large sums on behalf of people who are morally bankrupt (2nd mistake). In fact Kilmer's portrayal of Simon Templar is as far removed from Charteris's creation and the character portrayed so well by Moore, Ogilvy and Sanders you cannot even recognise him as being the same person.Having said that it was SO easy to forget that this was even a Saint movie. As far as I'm concerned it was just a wonderful exciting movie about an American cyber criminal on the run from the Russian Mafia who falls in love with an American physicist. The action is gripping the plot engaging and the acting superb, apart from a few VERY sickly scenes between Kilmer and Shue. I'm all for romance between characters but......I did enjoy it but apart from the title it is in no way, shape or form, a Saint Movie. That was the producers 3rd and biggest mistake. By calling it a Saint movie, they were already on the back foot as expectations were no doubt going to be high especially from die hard Saint fans like myself. Making the Saint an American is a BIG no no. having the Saint happily work for criminals is another.If they had removed all reference to The Saint character from the story, I could be easily reviewing one of the best movies of the '90's. Kilmer's Character was more akin to Ethan Hunt than anything you would ever find in a Charteris book. However, Elizabeth Shue is GORGEOUS and I really did enjoy this movie very much for what it was. If you can forget it's a supposed to be a Saint movie then I'm sure you will too.Enjoy!!!

This movie might actually be more interesting viewed now as a 90s period piece than when it first came out in the real 90s. Since most of the movie takes place in post-glasnost Moscow, albeit with icy Canada often standing in for wintry Mother Russia, the viewer gets a nice sketch of the effects of the end of the cold war on the people and economy of the former Soviet Union. As an industrial espionage thriller, The Saint is fairly predictable, but Val Kilmer has fun with his character's master-of-disguise shtick playing several neat cameos within the film that re-defined gentleman adventurer Simon Templar for the 90s. Shue makes a credible appearance as a sheltered academic everywoman dragged into intrigue beyond her previous experience. As an added treat, this movie also features the 90s-topical idea of cold fusion, now long since de-bunked.