Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Simon Templar (The Saint), is a thief for hire, whose latest job to steal the secret process for cold fusion puts him at odds with a traitor bent on toppling the Russian government, as well as the woman who holds its secret.
The Saint (1997) is a fairly generic late-90s spy-thriller adaptation that struggles to carve out a distinctive identity. Val Kilmer's chameleon-like disguises offer some entertainment and his performance carries the film, but the cold fusion MacGuffin plot is contrived and poorly developed. The romance feels forced and the screenplay relies heavily on genre clichés. Cinematography is competent but unremarkable. As an adaptation of the classic Leslie Charteris character, the film largely abandons what made The Saint distinctive in favor of a formulaic action-thriller template. The climax and resolution are predictable and unsatisfying, failing to deliver a memorable payoff.