Search
What's Hot
Add New Fall Shows to Your Watchlist
Star Trek: Time for TV?
Brady Bunch Reunion
Fall TV Day-By-Day Grid

The Secret Agent

1996, Movie, R, 94 mins

The Secret Agent: Review

SECRET AGENT, THE | JOSEPH CONRAD'S SECRET AGENT, THE
starstarstarstar
Writer-director Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Joseph Conrad's widely-read novel is an honorable failure, a screen version that's actually too faithful to its source. Bob Hoskins stars as Verloc, a member of a Soho anarchist organization who also serves as a spy for the Russian Embassy in London, keeping them informed of his group's revolutionary activities. When he's ordered to act as an agent provocateur by his Embassy contact, staging an "outrage" by setting off a bomb in the Greenwich Observatory in order to call attention to the anarchist problem, Verloc cruelly enlists the unwitting aid of his simpleminded brother-in-law, Stevie (Christian Bale). Stevie stumbles en route to the observatory and is killed when the bomb goes off prematurely, leaving Verloc to face an unexpected angel of vengeance: his heretofore passive wife, Winnie (Patricia Arquette). Hampton's word-for-word approach effectively captures the septic atmosphere of Conrad's London, but the novel's structure just isn t very cinematic. Since there are few visual correlatives to Conrad's satire, it makes for some very clumsy pacing and inexplicable characterizations. Alfred Hitchcock recognized the need for some serious rethinking of the novel, and his 1936 SABOTAGE is a less faithful but far more successful adaptation. leave a comment
Are You Watching?
The Secret Agent
Loading ...
Advertisement

Our Partners

Related Websites

You might be also interested in the following websites:

Most Popular TV Shows

  1. The Voice
  2. American Idol
  3. Mad Men
  4. Dancing with the Stars
  5. Scandal
more popular tv shows

Most Popular Celebrities

  1. Kate Middleton
  2. Kim Kardashian
  3. Ben Affleck
  4. Jennifer Garner
  5. Jennifer Lawrence
more popular celebrities

Most Popular Movies

  1. Star Trek Into Darkness
  2. Iron Man 3
  3. The Great Gatsby
  4. Pain & Gain
  5. 42
more popular movies

Top Videos

  1. Dancing With The Stars
  2. The Young and the Restless
  3. Scandal
  4. NCIS
  5. The Bold and the Beautiful
more top videos