During the 1990s when you see Michael Douglas on the poster you immediately would want to watch that movie. We don't know how but somehow this dashing actor, even when he looks the same in most of his movies, can pull off that character and make it unique for that movie. When he was in the American President, we loved him as the president. He played Gordon Gecko in Wall Street, we loved him as that shrewd and greedy businessman, and in other roles in Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct and Falling Down to name a few.
Now he comes here as Ed Leland, a hotshot lawyer that doubles as a spy for the US Government and we now love him as the spy. We may not see him put out some spy shit here but hell, we believed him to be so in this movie.
Paired with Douglas is Melanie Griffith playing Linda Voss. A half German half Irish girl who grew up in New York City. She became the translator cum secretary then lover to our Ed Leland. In a stroke of luck, she volunteers to be a spy inside Germany as she is qualified she says like a German butchers wife. She was to gather intelligence for a secret weapon Germany was creating against the Allied forces during World War II. She was inserted as a cook but her dishes went array and their mission is almost scrubbed when suddenly she was hired as a nanny for a much higher ranking officer, Franz-Otto Dietrich (played by Liam Neeson). Here she was able to get the information she needed and that helped in the war against Germany.
The movie is well made, the story line was solid, the back stories were short and sweet, the side stories about her cousins and the betrayal of her friend Margrete Von Eberstein (played by Joely Richardson) were good enough to add some spice to the movie. There are dull moments in the film, each lull in the story telling are important thus keeps you glued to the screen.
To be honest, we were never a fan of Melanie Griffith but somehow in this one, we were. The movie was tailored fit for a heroine and we were glad she pulled off a great performance. We recommend that you watch this film if you get a chance as this is a great spy romance thriller drama of a movie. Sadly its not on Netflix at the time of this writing, but we are confident this is shown on Amazon Prime.
