Blue Ice (1992)

Sadly Over-hyped

Fresh and Exciting

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

There can't have been many more actresses than Sean Young who could so successfully blend beauty with sensuality. Unfortunately credible acting would have to be shoehorned into that description. She sounds like she's reading from cue cards in that breathless voice. On the other hand, maybe that's how she speaks offstage. Her offstage antics couldn't have helped her career. Michael Caine, on the other hand, is a believable person here, with his Cockney accent and rhyming slang. He has a deft posh accent too, as in "Zulu." He gives a leaden interview in "Breaking the Mold." Caine and Young are the principals of this somewhat confused thriller about shipping illegal arms to madmen in the desert. The film was shot only a year or two following the collapse of the USSR and it's sort of elegiac. The heavy, Ian Holm, gives good support as the secret agent (or something) who suffered traumatic role loss when the primary enemy disappeared in a puff of smoke like the devil in the third act of "Faust" and who has become corrupt and cynical. Bob Hoskins is in it too, as a good guy, but isn't around very long.I kind of liked the musical score. Caine loves jazz and owns a club that -- well, if you like bebop, you'll like the source music. He doesn't mind classical music either, "except Schönberg," which is okay with me.The film is a thriller about intrigues in high and low places, illicit love affairs, good guys and bad guys. There are some tense moments, notably next to electric train tracks at night, and again in a shipyard at Port of London, which has Caine running around in a maze of those huge pre-package containers designed to be lifted from the ship's cargo and fitted directly onto the backs of semis.All very efficient, but they took the romance out of being stevedore managing breakhold cargo. As a kid I thrilled while wandering around the docks in New York and pocketing rolls of cork from Portugal and cylinders of cinnamon from God knows what exotic port. Here, poor Caine must run frantically, he must run across the tops of the malignant containers, to escape the security unit that's in hot pursuit.It's rather enjoyable, especially if you don't place too many urgent demands on the logic of the plot.

In the opening scenes at a funeral you gotta love Michael Caine's explanation of blue ice. Typical dry British humour, which only Caine could nail down. "Blue Ice" is an often panned British espionage thriller, which I didn't mind despite its bleak and formulaic narrative with a saucy noir touch and an all-familiar hard-edge Caine performance. A former British spy now jazz club owner is asked by his mistress (who happens to be the wife of the American Ambassador) to find an old boyfriend and when he does he becomes embroiled in murder and something much more. Director Russell Mulcahy (who has always been a stylish film-maker) window dresses this thriller with jazzed up sophistication and inflated slickness amongst its suspense, brutality and sleepy London locations caught by his sweeping camera. The contrived plot is slow building, manipulating and toying with the protagonist in a fascinating manner and a sense of witty humour doesn't go astray. There's one sequence that really stood out for me, because of how surreal and nightmarish it becomes and that's the drug-induced interrogation of Caine's character. Sean Young plays it rather distantly cold as the sultry mistress. While the likes Ian Holm and Bob Hoskins have small parts. A sturdily told, if burnished 90s action thriller joint."Just put it down to blue ice".

From director Russell (Highlander) Mulcahy comes a thriller that reminds one of a throwback to the spy flicks of yesteryear. With Michael Caine in the leading role, and a supporting gallery that contains the likes of Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Alun Armstrong and Sean Young, you'd be right to expect something quite good of Blue Ice. But sadly the movie emerges a dispirited and bewildering mish-mash of action, sex and violence that is quite unworthy of the talents involved. Caine and famous producer Martin Bregman set up their own production company to finance this film, calling it M&M Productions – the idea was to start a series of films featuring the Harry Anders character. The critical and commercial indifference that met Blue Ice meant that no sequels were made, and the production company never released another film. (Which tells you all you need to know!)Ex-secret agent Harry Anders (Michael Caine) now runs a jazz club in London. One day he is involved in a minor car accident with sexy Stacy Mansdorf (Sean Young), wife of the American Ambassador. The two of them hit it off and soon embark on a passionate affair, with the older Harry finding himself falling uncommonly hard for this sizzling young temptress. Stacy learns about Harry's past life as a secret agent, and begs him to help her with a problem she has. Seems a former lover of hers is threatening to ruin her reputation, and she thinks Harry might be able to straighten him out. But the seemingly innocuous job is riddled with danger, and before long Harry find himself up to his neck in betrayal, murder and international arms dealings. The trail leads to Harry's old MI6 boss, Sir Hector (Ian Holm), and as the bodies start piling up the aging hero finds himself once more playing the sort of deadly cloak-and-dagger game he thought he'd left behind for good….Mulcahy throws in his usual visual flourishes (he was formerly a music video director), but no amount of fancy camera angles and moody lighting can disguise the lack of a coherent plot. Caine lends the hero an air of self-humouring charm, but it's not really one of his finest roles simply because the haphazard script doesn't allow for the development of a memorable character. The sex scenes are unintentionally funny – 59 year old Caine looks somewhat out-of-shape, yet the camera glides slowly, lovingly over his body while he is locked in a naked embrace with Young. One can't really blame the actor; it's more the fault of the director and editor for thinking (unwisely) that they can bring geriatric sex appeal to these scenes. There are flashes of competent action throughout the film – explosions, gunfights, car chases and so forth. Hardly a moment of it hangs together meaningfully and there's little sense behind most of what goes on, but at least the action is put together in a solid professional manner. Blue Ice is generally a disappointing spy thriller, never quite so bad that it reaches the level of "unwatchable" but not good enough to be worthy of recommendation.

Here's another film that one might label a neo-noir. It's film noir in story, attitude and camera-work but it's color and it's a 1992 film, not one from the late 1940s or early '50s.The story is set in England and is a good mixture of suspense, action and romance. It's nicely filmed with a lot of night shots featuring some cool neon signs of London streets and pubs. Looks-wise, this film reminded me a lot of "Stormy Monday."There is some good jazz in here, too. The action picks up much more in the second half of the film, capped off by a unique huge transformer-like vehicle chasing Michael Caine. The ending was a bit weak and hokey but overall, the film was entertaining and good stuff if you're a noir buff.