Given its location filming and, while not quite A-list, serviceable cast, this film is a major disappointment. The plot is one that normally is associated with a thriller: A government courier's point of contact is murdered and with the aid of a beautiful women whom he has just met, take up solving the murder and stopping the plot behind the murder. But it's not a thriller, not a mystery, not much of anything. With Breen providing both the screenplay and direction, it's difficult to determine in which role he failed more epically. The movie runs 100 minutes but feels interminable, primarily because so little happens in that time. There are numerous plot threads that lead nowhere but eat up the minutes. Principal among these is with the murder victim's young daughter. Wagner meets her at her house and after killing time going room-to-room with her doing small talk, he puts her to bed while giving her a "your father is dead" speech only to have her fall asleep leaving this speech to be repeated later in the movie. Finally Wagner gets to what he intended to do when he arrived, search the house. The plot line finally makes some plot progress when O'Brien shows up just long enough to put Wagner on the scent. So 5 minutes unnecessary setup for that particular scene. And then it's introducing the Koko to Collins and putting her to bed there. And then bringing Koko back to Collins at film's end where Wagner says goodbye to her after again going through the "your father's dead" speech. Probably 15 minutes could have been saved by just eliminating the role and having O'Brien show up while Wagner was searching the house. Having mentioned Collins, her role is equally as irrelevant as written. There really isn't much romance and she's mainly around to make phone calls. Which then gets to Ken Scott. He's in and out of the script and the country as well. He's there mainly to provide the third side of a romantic triangle except there really isn't a triangle because there's minimal romance. Collins heaves Scott over the side for Wagner but accepts neither of them is going to fall for any women because their work is more important to them than any woman. So Wagner and Scott are off to the wild blue yonder leaving Collins and Koko behind with Collins having to deal with what to do with Koko. A fitting ending for a dismal movie.
The location filming and some mid-level stars show this wasn't a tiny budget production but Breen the director couldn't see that Breen the writer had thrown in a lot of needless fat. Dumping the Koko line, adding some intrigue, spicing up the romance and love triangle (or better still, just eliminating Scott's role entirely) and this wouldn't have been a blot on the careers of all involved. With more night shooting and some rewriting (OK, I understand, it has color photography), this could even have been a good noir film. As it is though, it's far too tedious for any enjoyment and an exercise in how to choke the life out of an intrigue / mystery film.
The location filming and some mid-level stars show this wasn't a tiny budget production but Breen the director couldn't see that Breen the writer had thrown in a lot of needless fat. Dumping the Koko line, adding some intrigue, spicing up the romance and love triangle (or better still, just eliminating Scott's role entirely) and this wouldn't have been a blot on the careers of all involved. With more night shooting and some rewriting (OK, I understand, it has color photography), this could even have been a good noir film. As it is though, it's far too tedious for any enjoyment and an exercise in how to choke the life out of an intrigue / mystery film.