Notre homme Flint

"Why did the eagle attack me?" - "It was trained to recognize Americans and attack them." - "An anti-American eagle. That's diabolical." A cute, light-hearted parody of the Bond films, with James Coburn, as nimble as a cat shelter, as an agent who can do anything in the world. Just watch his brilliant train of thought, which takes Flint to Marseille, where he scours restaurants and sniffs one plate of bouillabaisse after another to find the man who shot the poisoned dart at him. It's all for naught once Flint gets into action, the bad guys and the beautiful women are shaking in their boots, and saving the world (and the beautiful women) is sort of automatic. Especially when Jerry Goldsmith’s music plays to it.__P.S. Available on YouTube. (30/08/2015)

“Anti-American eagle. It’s diabolical.” Our Man Flint is a unique parody containing fewer humorous lines and situations than any of the early Bond films (as well as, for example, Moonraker, which though meant seriously, still remains a much more entertaining bit of tripe). Agent Flint could easily be a member of the same club as Her Majesty’s agent. Though he shows less respect for his superiors, possesses more liberalism in matters of female emancipation (hippie laxness as opposed to Bond’s conservatism, but put under a bit of pressure by a feminist threat in the sequel) and behaves in a more mature manner than Bond (definitely with fewer one-liners), he is the equal of 007 in terms of language skills, breadth of interests (among other things, he studies ballet and understands the language of dolphins) and physical performance. However, the film itself lags far behind the Bond films. It has a tiringly slow pace due to long padding shots. The scenes, though Bondishly set in luxury restaurants, modern research laboratories and smoky bars with exotic dancers, lack style and, furthermore, give the impression of being cheap. It is often not even possible to know in which country the action is taking place. With great effort, Jerry Goldsmith, who is audibly interested in the central Bond motif, and James Coburn, who handled fights against Connery himself and in unedited shots, eventually managed to drag the film out of the realm of obscurity. Though the sequel contains a comparable number of long, empty scenes (especially with technological toys) and focuses too much attention on characters other than Flint, it obviously had a larger budget and it is more apparent that it was intended to be a comedy. 50% (13/08/2019)