American Roulette (1988)
Carlos Quintas, the democratically-elected president of an unnamed South American country, has been deposed by a military coup. He is in London, the head of a government in exile, rallying international support. He is also a poet of talent and reputation, in love with Kate, his assistant, who has a secret of her own and keeps Carlos at a distance. The generals have a team of professionals in London bent on kidnap and assassination. Hovering around Carlos are two Russians, who may be KGB, an American book publisher, who may be CIA, an elusive Brit, probably from her majesty's secret service, and his own few supporters. Is Carlos doomed? Whom can he trust?
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Absolutely Fantastic
Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
It is difficult to accept that UK authorities and police will allow foreigners or terrorists to do what we can see in the film, i.e. a Latin American president escaping from a coup d'etat and being kidnaped in London by secret police of his country. It is non sense either to see the president moving free everywhere in London or in UK. The idea of the plot was perhaps to denounce as many coups d'etat Latin America has suffered and related problems of democracy there, but the arguments are too weak for the film to be qualified, at least, as an acceptable one.
Actually a collaboration between Australia and the U.S. this was originally conceived as a telemovie, but received theatrical release instead.Garcia is reliably good as always as Carlos Quintas, the deposed South American President currently in London looking for someone to support his cause. (No-one has causes like the South Americans!) His mind is only half on his job...the other half on his assistant Kate (played by Kitty Aldridge). On the periphery are a handful of questionably loyal individuals who could be either CIA, KGB, or rejects from a Bond movie! The plot doesn't matter, the film doesn't matter, but its all in good fun and eminently watchable. Brit actress Susannah York appears as herself. David Freeman and Buck Henry served as back-up script consultants for AMERICAN ROULETTE.