It has been a good week although will not be a memorable one. I have lost the first half stone in weight since getting my head and body in the right place to commence the dietary and other lifestyle changes necessary. At present I see no obstacle to the further reductions required if I maintain the diet control and increasing the amount of daily exercise. I am enjoying changes in the food which centres on the mushrooms and tomatoes breakfast and one pudding a day comprising stewed apples and plums with a topping of custard. I make the pudding in batches for servings and one 17 pence packet of custard sufficient, enjoying subsequent helpings either cold or heated in the microwave for a few minutes.
It is the while roast chicken weekend followed by a curry and stir fry. There were chicken thighs yesterday evening saving sprats until next Saturday. There was no replacement Tex Mex at Asda so I have just portions of onion wings and breaded mushroom left however they were selling office the 60 piece Chinese platters just for £1, amazing value with Indian snacks for £2. I shall use the Chinese as a makeshift main platter once a week.
I have reduced the quantity of salad using a flat dish rather than rectangular bowl. Asda was out of packet shell prawns which are noteworthy. Chocolate however small is out as well as bread. I am enjoying the carton of mixed root vegetables and at £1 but going off the sweet peppers and cucumbers. Twice during the week I did not feel hungry at lunch time and eat late afternoon although in one instance I also needed a salad late. This is one consequence of the revised lifestyle day in that I am staying up late often watching a film and even then having problems with getting off to sleep but once off then the rest of the night follows a regular pattern.
I watched the 90th Remembrance service and march past at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. It is always moving to see children, possibly grandchildren as well as wives and daughters participate, as well as veterans, in the march past which is organised by the British Legion who also arrange the Saturday evening event at the Royal Albert Hall. South Shields Joe McEldery participated along with Cliff Richard and Alfie Bose who’s Bring him Home ended the Andrew Marr Show this morning and was eminently appropriate and moving.
Last night there was also a performance of the Soldiers Wife’s choir where some of the participants are featured in a new series on Monday night where in the second programme they prepare to perform for Forces Radio. The programme is designed to bring to the wider public what it is like to be part of service quarters while the partners away in a combat zone. There were two memorable emotional experiences on Saturday evening. The first was the account of a young man where at least her husband was able to return home for the birth of his son for a few days. He was killed when a bomb was thrown over the wall of his station as he was walking towards it dying on his way to the medical centre. The soldier‘s father spoke of the day the news came, and a friend of the impact of the death. The wife and her father in law led the procession of family members who had lost relatives, some of 40 odd killed since the event and service last year. The other was the young Ghurkha who received the military cross for alone defending his outpost while undertake attach from a substantial force until relief arrived. He had not expected to live expecting his position to be overrun before reinforcement could arrive. His father and grandfather have served in the regiment from Nepal before him. He led the service procession placing the bible on the drum head to a standing ovation.
While I have caught up with some of the TV series during the week with the second part of the Crime Gangs and Cops still to do ( Boardwalk Empire and Blue Bloods) and with a Merlin catch up also due, there are several films of varying quality and entertainment value to report.
I begin the with latest film experience because it was shot primarily in Venice and also in Paris, and never intended to take itself serious, The Tourist 2010 with Angelina Jolie and John Depp and Timothy Dalton was enjoyable late night fun which did not require intense mental or emotional attention.
Alexander Pearce worked as an accountant for an international criminal, an Englishman surrounding himself with Russian Hoods. Alexander steals $2.3 million dollars from his employer and then goes on the run during which time he is pursued by the beautiful Angelina as Elise, an undercover international spy working for the British and in particular Paul Bettany as Inspector John Acheson who is pursing Pearce not as thief or the accountant for an International crime boss, but for unpaid taxes amounting to £744 million. Some £8 million has been devoted to the task to-date.
Elise has one flaw as an undercover spy she falls in love with her honey pot victims and has taken up residence with Pearce reputedly for the greater part of a year. She is consequentially suspended from her job. Pearce then changes his face spending $20 million to achieve his new look during which time he has no direct contact with his bed partner who lives the life without him in Paris spending her say relaxing in pavements cafés and expensive shopping and living the life of rich widow waiting to hear from her partner after his facial transformation.
During this unspecified period she is kept under surveillance by British agents with the help of the French Police although Jolie is all too well aware of their presence. One day at the café a messenger brings her a brief note inside a larger delivery package. The observation squad apprehend the delivery man believing he is Pearce only to find he is who is he is. Elise burns the note as instructed but the ashes are recovered, chemically treated and scanned into a computer programme which reassembles the fragment into the message. Meanwhile she has enjoyed giving those watching her temporary slip which she takes the train from Paris to Venice and attempt to find one person of the same height and build who is sitting alone in a compartment.
She assumes this is to be Pearce but the man quickly disabuses her by stating that he is a bachelor school master from the USA, with an American accent (played by Johnny Depp) on his way as a Tourist to Venice. She assumes or off camera is advised that he is a blind, a patsy, someone who will be taken to be Pearce by the British authorities and the Russian style international hood and followed by Interpol and the pursing former employer after his money. She may have been advised of this in a subsequent note which is not shared with the viewer. She takes him to a pre booked for her expensive suite in a hotel overlooking the Grand Canal which is full of her size designer wear and requires that he sleep on one of the sofas although gives him at kiss at the window for the purpose of making observers believe it is Pearce.
They have a meal in the dining room during which flowers are delivered to the suite and a new message with an invitation for Elise to attend a Ball. We also witness the owner of $2.3 billion ordering his hoods to find Pearce alive but the girl can be killed once Pearce has been secured. The Tourist with the name of Frank Tupelo wakes to find breakfast is being delivered and he still in his night attire when the hoods arrives and start shooting through doors so he has go onto the balcony and get onto the roof and is eventual forced to dive down on to a canopy and then onto a policeman who falls into a canal. He is held by the police several hours after explaining to a senior detective his nightmare of what has happened.
The detective then attempts to sell him to the Russian style hoods but he manages to escape still in hand cuffs and in he canal cruiser in which he has been brought to the meeting place, but before he is handed over his boat is towed away by one driven by Elise. Then is then a low powered chase through the canals because of the enforced speed limit by the Venetian authorities to avoid further damage to the buildings. The couple eventually get away and this costs the surviving Russian hood his life, personally killed by the International criminal in front of a tailor preparing a new suit.
Next Elsie attends the local police/Interpol centre where it is revealed for the first time that she is a suspended British agent because of her relationship with Pearce. True to previous experience she had grown fond of the self effacing American Tourist and she agrees to be wired for the Ball or locating Pearce. She then takes the Tourist to the canal side airport station with his passport and money telling him to return home and forget what happened.
At the Ball she believes someone who has left a new note for her is Pearce but he disappears. Frank the American Tourist gains entry into the Ball and dances with her she disappears while Frank is apprehended by the British out to recover more than the £8 million they have spent to-date trying to secure the £744 in unpaid taxes. The girl makes her away to the rendezvous which because of the wire is also known to the Interpol group who establish surveillance with marksmen covering the windows.
Here Elsie is trapped and threatened with Torture and death by the Englishman and two new Russian Hoods. She reveals the location of the safe but her first try at opening is a false one. Frank who has been watching the event on camera and handcuffed again becomes more and more agitated as the Inspector refuses to give the order to fire on the captors to save the life of Elise because he hopes that the situation will force Pearce to reveal himself.
There should be few viewers by this time who have not worked out that Frank is really Pearce and this is confirmed when he undoes the handcuffs and gets away from the surveillance centre and appears in the apartment introducing himself as Pearce and offering to open the safe if Elise is allowed to depart. She is not so when he goes to the safe the order is given to shoot the criminal and his bodyguards. The boss of the Inspector is present and he lifts the suspension on Elise and immediately discharges her from the service so she can go off with the Tourist. Then the news comes that the man who had left the note at the Ball has been spotted and the unit goes off to apprehend him believing he is Pearce. He turns out to be a genuine American Tourist paid by Pearce to deliver message and be at different places as indicated by mobile phone message having received a significant payment with a promises of more.
Pearce when confronted by his former boss has already explained the extent of the facial reconstruction including an implant to change the sound of his voice and produce the American accent.
Alone with Jolie he opens the safe to reveal passport cash and other goodies, presumable the codes and information on the location of the main funds. The Inspector and his boss arrive back and are forced to blow open the safe where a single cheque is found for the full amount of the back taxes, The Inspector is wanting to mount a new manhunt for Pearce but his boss is philosophical drawing attention that the real villains are dead, that they have recovered the full amount of the taxes and he wishes he couple well who are seen setting of for a new life together and presumably with the balance remaining on the ill gotten gains.
The outstanding question is did Jolie really not realise that the Tourist was not Pearce. Ok he had dramatic facial and voice reconstruction but his manner and general personality will not have changed.
A similar kind of caper although one which was more inclined to take itself seriously is Mozambique a 1965 British Drama. As with the Tourist the aspect of the film which engages is the location shooting at the Victoria Falls and in Portugal who then managed the African country as a colony. It has to be said there is no rational justification for any of the action centring on the falls as the main action appears to centre on the Capital city which is in the far south of the country and smuggling to the island of Zanzibar which is off the coast of a neighbouring country to the far north. It is possible that the location of the hotel and the nightclub featured in the film was not in the capital city although it is unlikely there were two International airports in the country at that time.
The film is the story of an out of work pilot in Portugal since the aircraft he was flying crashed killing his passengers and where he was the only survivor. He is offered a job in Mozambique provided with a one way ticket and not told what his duties will be. Also on the same plane is a young and attractive singer also out of a job who has been offered a contract to sing at a night club again with only a one way ticket. Both are clearly desperate to have accepted the offer on this basis.
Prior to their departure a man is seen travelling down some steps and then is found murdered at the same time a number of children are also passing down the same steps. There is an important clue here which will escape most viewers unless they have some advanced insight into the story.
I cannot remember now why the pilot comes to the attention of the Portuguese authorities and in particular one police inspector but he does and it emerges that his interest is in the activities of the man who has hired the pilot and similar to the Tourist the interest is as much in the location of the ill gotten funds in a numbered account which it emerges the murdered man on the steps was carrying information in the attaché case.
In Mozambique where the main action takes places the pilot is surprised, rather than shocked, to find that his employer has died and that his widow, played by Hildegard Knef appears under the control of the mans chief assistant who in turn taken control of the nightclub and is assisted by a at least one heavy as well as other security personal.
There are various scenes at the night club which appears an extraordinary odd place filled with unhappy looking people who spend their time listening to acts or sitting in silence. We are treated to an African dance troupe and to various boring singers even by the standards of the day. This includes the new recruit although the contribution by Knef later in the film is worth attention and only underlines the gulf between her voice, the song and performance and that of everyone she followed.
Having said this about the club it is also used as a brothel where the singers are expected to sleep with customers under management arrangements. There is an Arab racketeer based in Zanzibar but with a penthouse in Park Lane who engages in white slaving kidnapping and rape. The new singer is duly kidnapped and carried off to Zanzibar after she has established a sexual relationship with the pilot who she turns to for protection.
He finds that his task is to fly a light plane involved in trafficking pharmaceutical products and as well as illegal drug substances. This leads him to accompanying the new boss to Zanzibar where he is able to rescue the singer and the three return to the private airfield used for the enterprise. However before arrival they have to take the plane down on a beach because of a clogged fuel line and after fixing decide to take a break at a beach spot for some distance away from where the lane has landed. When the couple return they find the new boss stabbed. They bring the body back with the plane only to find the police waiting and wanting to check for drugs. The two are taken into custody on suspicion for murder.
The senior police office from Portugal has arrived in order to pass to the widow the missing brief case which was subsequently found. It is at this point I cannot remember aspects of the plot which involves another character who the pilot has followed one night from the night club to a first floor apartment. The individual prevents the pilot from entering the apartment on the grounds he has a woman for the bar also in the building living there. Later the pilot discovers that living in the apartment is a man who these days we will describe as a height challenged individual, known in the day as a dwarf. He had been employed to kill the agent with the brief case in Portugal and has merged in with the other children who with amazing coincidence had gone down the steps at the same time. He had also hidden in the plane undetected on the journey to Zanzibar and having doctored the engine intended to kill the new head of the enterprise.
This individual was acting for the widow who he now double crosses and takes off on road on his way over the border via the crossing at the Victoria Falls stopping off at the Victoria Falls hotel for breakfast and room to freshen up. The Portuguese police man accompanies the pilot in a borrowed plane in pursuit of the car and sets down at the nearest airport not without great views of the Falls beforehand. The adventure appears to end at a bridge at the Falls from which there is a fight with the death of the villain. On return to the capital the widow is arrested as the instigator of the deaths in order to gain control of the funds of her husband. The pilot and the singer are able to go off into the sunset as a couple.
Snake Eyes is a 1998 released film featuring Nicholas Cage in a bravura performance as a dodgy detective who knows everybody who is anybody in contemporary Atlantic City which he regards as his manor. He attends a major Boxing event intended to help rebuild the image of the City at which also present is the United Sates Defence Secretary on his was back from attending a demonstration of a new missile Defence system which the Department is considering buying from a private company. Cage is accompanied by going back best friend who is the chief of staff and security officer for the Secretary.
Cage has gambled out of his depths on the Champ beating his opponent and is shocked when the champion appears to take a dive although this is only apparent later from video tapes. Before this his attention is directed at a sexually attractive red headed young woman who takes a ringside seat. Another young woman takes the vacated seat of the chief of staff who has moved to talk to the young woman and who had then moved away up a stairway as he approached. This young woman is shot wounded as the Secretary of State is also shot and killed.
The chief of staff shoots the assassin who is located at the top of the steps where he was following the red headed woman as she left. The State police attempt to take charge but Cage exerts his authority until Federal Government agents arrive. There is lock down at the stadium while the identities of everyone are checked out and to establish witnesses to the event. Cage watches available video and works out the champ has dived and confronts him, gaining the admission that he was blackmailed because of gambling debts to take the dive at a signal from a man in the crowd.
He also works out that the young woman who sat in front of the Defence Secretary is connected although the initial reaction from the information about the killed assassin is that he was a Palestine Terrorist. The young woman behaves suspiciously in covering a wound to her arm and talking her way into the hotel room of a gambler at the adjacent Casino to the fight Hall with a view to hiding out.
Cage goes in pursuit using closed circuit TV to track her movements. By this time we also know that his friend is a villain and involved in the killing of the Defence Secretary and attempted killing of the young woman. He has a small team with him who included the red headed woman who was wearing a wig and is an official member of staff. He has killed he three members of his support team and is also in pursuit of the young woman.
What emerges is that the young woman is a research worker at the company and discovered that the evidence of the missile system working was fixed to give the impression that the targets at the demonstration were hit when they were not. The company wanted the contract to go through which they had bribed the Chief of staff and hoped they would be able to fix the faults before the required delivery dates.
The young woman had attempted to contact the Defence Secretary and arranged to meet him at the Boxing match to pass on the evidence of the conspiracy. The style of the film is that of the caper the Tourist although there are several more dramatic moments including when Cage has to wrestle with the accusation that his best friend is behind the killing. There are also moments of farce. Their respective lives are saved and the friend killed.
Cage is immediate recognised as a hero and his ambition to become the Mayor of Atlantic City becomes possible. However the press who have been investigating his activities produce evidence that leads to his arrest for corruption. His wife abandons him and he loses custody of their son. He is also abandoned by his mistress. On the day before he is due to commence a prison sentence he meets the young woman whose life he saved and who thanks him for his involvement as his actions prevented the fraud being perpetrated and which could have resulted in the loss of soldiers’ lives. Despite the difference in ages she says she will wait for him after they kiss.
Throughout the film there is a sexually attractive women involved in a way I cannot now remember. As the final credits roll we see a construction team placing a large column into a hole and the sight of large ruby which the woman had been seen wearing, What the implications of this is in terns of the Mafia tradition of burning in concrete as well as among the fishes is uncertain except for the reputation of Atlantic City being a Mafia style gangland run City from the days of Prohibition, Nucky Thompson and the Boardwalk Empire.
There are three more films, catch up TV and the opening of Leveson Inquiry to follow
It is the while roast chicken weekend followed by a curry and stir fry. There were chicken thighs yesterday evening saving sprats until next Saturday. There was no replacement Tex Mex at Asda so I have just portions of onion wings and breaded mushroom left however they were selling office the 60 piece Chinese platters just for £1, amazing value with Indian snacks for £2. I shall use the Chinese as a makeshift main platter once a week.
I have reduced the quantity of salad using a flat dish rather than rectangular bowl. Asda was out of packet shell prawns which are noteworthy. Chocolate however small is out as well as bread. I am enjoying the carton of mixed root vegetables and at £1 but going off the sweet peppers and cucumbers. Twice during the week I did not feel hungry at lunch time and eat late afternoon although in one instance I also needed a salad late. This is one consequence of the revised lifestyle day in that I am staying up late often watching a film and even then having problems with getting off to sleep but once off then the rest of the night follows a regular pattern.
I watched the 90th Remembrance service and march past at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. It is always moving to see children, possibly grandchildren as well as wives and daughters participate, as well as veterans, in the march past which is organised by the British Legion who also arrange the Saturday evening event at the Royal Albert Hall. South Shields Joe McEldery participated along with Cliff Richard and Alfie Bose who’s Bring him Home ended the Andrew Marr Show this morning and was eminently appropriate and moving.
Last night there was also a performance of the Soldiers Wife’s choir where some of the participants are featured in a new series on Monday night where in the second programme they prepare to perform for Forces Radio. The programme is designed to bring to the wider public what it is like to be part of service quarters while the partners away in a combat zone. There were two memorable emotional experiences on Saturday evening. The first was the account of a young man where at least her husband was able to return home for the birth of his son for a few days. He was killed when a bomb was thrown over the wall of his station as he was walking towards it dying on his way to the medical centre. The soldier‘s father spoke of the day the news came, and a friend of the impact of the death. The wife and her father in law led the procession of family members who had lost relatives, some of 40 odd killed since the event and service last year. The other was the young Ghurkha who received the military cross for alone defending his outpost while undertake attach from a substantial force until relief arrived. He had not expected to live expecting his position to be overrun before reinforcement could arrive. His father and grandfather have served in the regiment from Nepal before him. He led the service procession placing the bible on the drum head to a standing ovation.
While I have caught up with some of the TV series during the week with the second part of the Crime Gangs and Cops still to do ( Boardwalk Empire and Blue Bloods) and with a Merlin catch up also due, there are several films of varying quality and entertainment value to report.
I begin the with latest film experience because it was shot primarily in Venice and also in Paris, and never intended to take itself serious, The Tourist 2010 with Angelina Jolie and John Depp and Timothy Dalton was enjoyable late night fun which did not require intense mental or emotional attention.
Alexander Pearce worked as an accountant for an international criminal, an Englishman surrounding himself with Russian Hoods. Alexander steals $2.3 million dollars from his employer and then goes on the run during which time he is pursued by the beautiful Angelina as Elise, an undercover international spy working for the British and in particular Paul Bettany as Inspector John Acheson who is pursing Pearce not as thief or the accountant for an International crime boss, but for unpaid taxes amounting to £744 million. Some £8 million has been devoted to the task to-date.
Elise has one flaw as an undercover spy she falls in love with her honey pot victims and has taken up residence with Pearce reputedly for the greater part of a year. She is consequentially suspended from her job. Pearce then changes his face spending $20 million to achieve his new look during which time he has no direct contact with his bed partner who lives the life without him in Paris spending her say relaxing in pavements cafés and expensive shopping and living the life of rich widow waiting to hear from her partner after his facial transformation.
During this unspecified period she is kept under surveillance by British agents with the help of the French Police although Jolie is all too well aware of their presence. One day at the café a messenger brings her a brief note inside a larger delivery package. The observation squad apprehend the delivery man believing he is Pearce only to find he is who is he is. Elise burns the note as instructed but the ashes are recovered, chemically treated and scanned into a computer programme which reassembles the fragment into the message. Meanwhile she has enjoyed giving those watching her temporary slip which she takes the train from Paris to Venice and attempt to find one person of the same height and build who is sitting alone in a compartment.
She assumes this is to be Pearce but the man quickly disabuses her by stating that he is a bachelor school master from the USA, with an American accent (played by Johnny Depp) on his way as a Tourist to Venice. She assumes or off camera is advised that he is a blind, a patsy, someone who will be taken to be Pearce by the British authorities and the Russian style international hood and followed by Interpol and the pursing former employer after his money. She may have been advised of this in a subsequent note which is not shared with the viewer. She takes him to a pre booked for her expensive suite in a hotel overlooking the Grand Canal which is full of her size designer wear and requires that he sleep on one of the sofas although gives him at kiss at the window for the purpose of making observers believe it is Pearce.
They have a meal in the dining room during which flowers are delivered to the suite and a new message with an invitation for Elise to attend a Ball. We also witness the owner of $2.3 billion ordering his hoods to find Pearce alive but the girl can be killed once Pearce has been secured. The Tourist with the name of Frank Tupelo wakes to find breakfast is being delivered and he still in his night attire when the hoods arrives and start shooting through doors so he has go onto the balcony and get onto the roof and is eventual forced to dive down on to a canopy and then onto a policeman who falls into a canal. He is held by the police several hours after explaining to a senior detective his nightmare of what has happened.
The detective then attempts to sell him to the Russian style hoods but he manages to escape still in hand cuffs and in he canal cruiser in which he has been brought to the meeting place, but before he is handed over his boat is towed away by one driven by Elise. Then is then a low powered chase through the canals because of the enforced speed limit by the Venetian authorities to avoid further damage to the buildings. The couple eventually get away and this costs the surviving Russian hood his life, personally killed by the International criminal in front of a tailor preparing a new suit.
Next Elsie attends the local police/Interpol centre where it is revealed for the first time that she is a suspended British agent because of her relationship with Pearce. True to previous experience she had grown fond of the self effacing American Tourist and she agrees to be wired for the Ball or locating Pearce. She then takes the Tourist to the canal side airport station with his passport and money telling him to return home and forget what happened.
At the Ball she believes someone who has left a new note for her is Pearce but he disappears. Frank the American Tourist gains entry into the Ball and dances with her she disappears while Frank is apprehended by the British out to recover more than the £8 million they have spent to-date trying to secure the £744 in unpaid taxes. The girl makes her away to the rendezvous which because of the wire is also known to the Interpol group who establish surveillance with marksmen covering the windows.
Here Elsie is trapped and threatened with Torture and death by the Englishman and two new Russian Hoods. She reveals the location of the safe but her first try at opening is a false one. Frank who has been watching the event on camera and handcuffed again becomes more and more agitated as the Inspector refuses to give the order to fire on the captors to save the life of Elise because he hopes that the situation will force Pearce to reveal himself.
There should be few viewers by this time who have not worked out that Frank is really Pearce and this is confirmed when he undoes the handcuffs and gets away from the surveillance centre and appears in the apartment introducing himself as Pearce and offering to open the safe if Elise is allowed to depart. She is not so when he goes to the safe the order is given to shoot the criminal and his bodyguards. The boss of the Inspector is present and he lifts the suspension on Elise and immediately discharges her from the service so she can go off with the Tourist. Then the news comes that the man who had left the note at the Ball has been spotted and the unit goes off to apprehend him believing he is Pearce. He turns out to be a genuine American Tourist paid by Pearce to deliver message and be at different places as indicated by mobile phone message having received a significant payment with a promises of more.
Pearce when confronted by his former boss has already explained the extent of the facial reconstruction including an implant to change the sound of his voice and produce the American accent.
Alone with Jolie he opens the safe to reveal passport cash and other goodies, presumable the codes and information on the location of the main funds. The Inspector and his boss arrive back and are forced to blow open the safe where a single cheque is found for the full amount of the back taxes, The Inspector is wanting to mount a new manhunt for Pearce but his boss is philosophical drawing attention that the real villains are dead, that they have recovered the full amount of the taxes and he wishes he couple well who are seen setting of for a new life together and presumably with the balance remaining on the ill gotten gains.
The outstanding question is did Jolie really not realise that the Tourist was not Pearce. Ok he had dramatic facial and voice reconstruction but his manner and general personality will not have changed.
A similar kind of caper although one which was more inclined to take itself seriously is Mozambique a 1965 British Drama. As with the Tourist the aspect of the film which engages is the location shooting at the Victoria Falls and in Portugal who then managed the African country as a colony. It has to be said there is no rational justification for any of the action centring on the falls as the main action appears to centre on the Capital city which is in the far south of the country and smuggling to the island of Zanzibar which is off the coast of a neighbouring country to the far north. It is possible that the location of the hotel and the nightclub featured in the film was not in the capital city although it is unlikely there were two International airports in the country at that time.
The film is the story of an out of work pilot in Portugal since the aircraft he was flying crashed killing his passengers and where he was the only survivor. He is offered a job in Mozambique provided with a one way ticket and not told what his duties will be. Also on the same plane is a young and attractive singer also out of a job who has been offered a contract to sing at a night club again with only a one way ticket. Both are clearly desperate to have accepted the offer on this basis.
Prior to their departure a man is seen travelling down some steps and then is found murdered at the same time a number of children are also passing down the same steps. There is an important clue here which will escape most viewers unless they have some advanced insight into the story.
I cannot remember now why the pilot comes to the attention of the Portuguese authorities and in particular one police inspector but he does and it emerges that his interest is in the activities of the man who has hired the pilot and similar to the Tourist the interest is as much in the location of the ill gotten funds in a numbered account which it emerges the murdered man on the steps was carrying information in the attaché case.
In Mozambique where the main action takes places the pilot is surprised, rather than shocked, to find that his employer has died and that his widow, played by Hildegard Knef appears under the control of the mans chief assistant who in turn taken control of the nightclub and is assisted by a at least one heavy as well as other security personal.
There are various scenes at the night club which appears an extraordinary odd place filled with unhappy looking people who spend their time listening to acts or sitting in silence. We are treated to an African dance troupe and to various boring singers even by the standards of the day. This includes the new recruit although the contribution by Knef later in the film is worth attention and only underlines the gulf between her voice, the song and performance and that of everyone she followed.
Having said this about the club it is also used as a brothel where the singers are expected to sleep with customers under management arrangements. There is an Arab racketeer based in Zanzibar but with a penthouse in Park Lane who engages in white slaving kidnapping and rape. The new singer is duly kidnapped and carried off to Zanzibar after she has established a sexual relationship with the pilot who she turns to for protection.
He finds that his task is to fly a light plane involved in trafficking pharmaceutical products and as well as illegal drug substances. This leads him to accompanying the new boss to Zanzibar where he is able to rescue the singer and the three return to the private airfield used for the enterprise. However before arrival they have to take the plane down on a beach because of a clogged fuel line and after fixing decide to take a break at a beach spot for some distance away from where the lane has landed. When the couple return they find the new boss stabbed. They bring the body back with the plane only to find the police waiting and wanting to check for drugs. The two are taken into custody on suspicion for murder.
The senior police office from Portugal has arrived in order to pass to the widow the missing brief case which was subsequently found. It is at this point I cannot remember aspects of the plot which involves another character who the pilot has followed one night from the night club to a first floor apartment. The individual prevents the pilot from entering the apartment on the grounds he has a woman for the bar also in the building living there. Later the pilot discovers that living in the apartment is a man who these days we will describe as a height challenged individual, known in the day as a dwarf. He had been employed to kill the agent with the brief case in Portugal and has merged in with the other children who with amazing coincidence had gone down the steps at the same time. He had also hidden in the plane undetected on the journey to Zanzibar and having doctored the engine intended to kill the new head of the enterprise.
This individual was acting for the widow who he now double crosses and takes off on road on his way over the border via the crossing at the Victoria Falls stopping off at the Victoria Falls hotel for breakfast and room to freshen up. The Portuguese police man accompanies the pilot in a borrowed plane in pursuit of the car and sets down at the nearest airport not without great views of the Falls beforehand. The adventure appears to end at a bridge at the Falls from which there is a fight with the death of the villain. On return to the capital the widow is arrested as the instigator of the deaths in order to gain control of the funds of her husband. The pilot and the singer are able to go off into the sunset as a couple.
Snake Eyes is a 1998 released film featuring Nicholas Cage in a bravura performance as a dodgy detective who knows everybody who is anybody in contemporary Atlantic City which he regards as his manor. He attends a major Boxing event intended to help rebuild the image of the City at which also present is the United Sates Defence Secretary on his was back from attending a demonstration of a new missile Defence system which the Department is considering buying from a private company. Cage is accompanied by going back best friend who is the chief of staff and security officer for the Secretary.
Cage has gambled out of his depths on the Champ beating his opponent and is shocked when the champion appears to take a dive although this is only apparent later from video tapes. Before this his attention is directed at a sexually attractive red headed young woman who takes a ringside seat. Another young woman takes the vacated seat of the chief of staff who has moved to talk to the young woman and who had then moved away up a stairway as he approached. This young woman is shot wounded as the Secretary of State is also shot and killed.
The chief of staff shoots the assassin who is located at the top of the steps where he was following the red headed woman as she left. The State police attempt to take charge but Cage exerts his authority until Federal Government agents arrive. There is lock down at the stadium while the identities of everyone are checked out and to establish witnesses to the event. Cage watches available video and works out the champ has dived and confronts him, gaining the admission that he was blackmailed because of gambling debts to take the dive at a signal from a man in the crowd.
He also works out that the young woman who sat in front of the Defence Secretary is connected although the initial reaction from the information about the killed assassin is that he was a Palestine Terrorist. The young woman behaves suspiciously in covering a wound to her arm and talking her way into the hotel room of a gambler at the adjacent Casino to the fight Hall with a view to hiding out.
Cage goes in pursuit using closed circuit TV to track her movements. By this time we also know that his friend is a villain and involved in the killing of the Defence Secretary and attempted killing of the young woman. He has a small team with him who included the red headed woman who was wearing a wig and is an official member of staff. He has killed he three members of his support team and is also in pursuit of the young woman.
What emerges is that the young woman is a research worker at the company and discovered that the evidence of the missile system working was fixed to give the impression that the targets at the demonstration were hit when they were not. The company wanted the contract to go through which they had bribed the Chief of staff and hoped they would be able to fix the faults before the required delivery dates.
The young woman had attempted to contact the Defence Secretary and arranged to meet him at the Boxing match to pass on the evidence of the conspiracy. The style of the film is that of the caper the Tourist although there are several more dramatic moments including when Cage has to wrestle with the accusation that his best friend is behind the killing. There are also moments of farce. Their respective lives are saved and the friend killed.
Cage is immediate recognised as a hero and his ambition to become the Mayor of Atlantic City becomes possible. However the press who have been investigating his activities produce evidence that leads to his arrest for corruption. His wife abandons him and he loses custody of their son. He is also abandoned by his mistress. On the day before he is due to commence a prison sentence he meets the young woman whose life he saved and who thanks him for his involvement as his actions prevented the fraud being perpetrated and which could have resulted in the loss of soldiers’ lives. Despite the difference in ages she says she will wait for him after they kiss.
Throughout the film there is a sexually attractive women involved in a way I cannot now remember. As the final credits roll we see a construction team placing a large column into a hole and the sight of large ruby which the woman had been seen wearing, What the implications of this is in terns of the Mafia tradition of burning in concrete as well as among the fishes is uncertain except for the reputation of Atlantic City being a Mafia style gangland run City from the days of Prohibition, Nucky Thompson and the Boardwalk Empire.
There are three more films, catch up TV and the opening of Leveson Inquiry to follow
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