Cold war films dominated the 1960's from John Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Seven Days in May" to misfires like this. Montgomery Clift's last film is a dreadfully boring tale of an American chemist in Germany asked to obtain information from the Russians and the trouble it ends up causing him. So convoluted, the plot can only be further detailed through an algebra formula, it has little to no action, zero humor and a group of characters so uninteresting that James Bond would fall asleep trying to entrap them. As a curio in the career of Clift, it should be noted that in spite of lifestyle choices (alcohol, drugs, depression), he actually still looks very handsome. It's not his fault that his performance seems to contain no energy-that problem lies in the direction and the script.
Review of The Defector
The Defector
(1966)
You have to watch this twice to try not to be confused, and I ain't gonna waste my time...
9 March 2013
Warning: Spoilers