Surprisingly incoherent and boring

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

As Good As It Gets

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is probably the only movie you'll find with stars of the caliber of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn who begin the story by getting hit in the face with a squirt gun! I'd have to say they took it pretty well in stride to create an entertaining comedy/mystery that more than a few viewers on this board compared to an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. My thoughts were in agreement as the film started out as well, the train sequence was a regular Hitchcock motif.What was distracting to me though was the age disparity between the fifty nine year old Grant at the time, romantically paired with Hepburn who was thirty two. This wasn't uncommon for the era, but it comes across as rather unrealistic today. Grant's shower scene with his suit on would have played much better with a younger actor, and probably more credible. But in relation to the main story, I think they more than pulled it off with Grant's constant change of identity right up until the surprise reveal at the American embassy. What the picture did more than anything for me was to wish that we had gotten a look at the 'real' Charles Voss. He must have been quite the character if all three of his funeral attendees felt it necessary to test the integrity of the corpse. Reading some of the other reviews for this picture, and even though I enjoyed it quite well myself, I would have to agree that there's a somewhat dated quality to the writing, most notably at the finale with Regina Lampert's (Hepburn) gushing over the idea of a marriage license. That's something that was all too typical Fifties and Sixties that wouldn't pass muster with today's audiences.

After the wonderful fun and colourful opening credits we have to wait until the final quarter of an hour for the film to equal it. For the most part this is a rather drawn out and ridiculous and unfunny caper with a few amusing moments. Cary Grant is as good as he usually is at this period of the sixties (only okay) and Audrey Hepburn, who many love and I struggle with as much as she does her parts. Here she about half Grant's age and is presumably asked to play it like a silly schoolgirl. Meanwhile she is asked to display all this haute couture stuff and whoever thought it was a good idea to display clothes on that body must be having a laugh. Sad and cringe making at times there are just enough moments, especially those with Walter Matthau to keep this going until the delirious last section. Why, oh why couldn't we have had more of this? Instead of a motley collection of gents in hotel rooms we could have been out in the sunny streets of Paris. There is colour, there is suspense, there is even romance as we race and chase in full on colour, including a scene at the stamp fair and a fantastic sequence down in the glistening metro passage ways and on the trains. A glorious ending to a very average film.

Impossible to review this film without employing the term Hitchcockian so I'll get it over with right away. At times it seems as if all that's needed to complete the picture is for Audrey Hepburn to dye her hair blonde as elsewhere we have Cary Grant reprising his Roger Thornhill meets John Robbie persona, a plot with more twists and turns than a slalom ski-slope and more MacGuffins than you can shake a stick at.It helps when there's a supporting cast of the quality of Walter Matthau, James Coburn and George Kennedy all playing cherche-la-femme in Paris as the newly widowed Hepburn learns she's inadvertently in possession of a secret of her lately murdered husband worth $250000. Director Donen keeps the surprises coming with pleasing regularity keeping the audience on the hop throughout until a denouement somehow reminiscent to me of "The Third Man".Underpinning all the kills and thrills is the chemistry between Grant and Hepburn as both play their parts and act their ages with great aplomb. It's fun to see Hepburn chasing Grant in an inversion of the norm although I don't think you'd find too many men running away from her. There are some surprisingly shocking images of the deaths of Hamilton and Coburn in particular and liberal doses of the type of black humour of which the Master would have been proud, none more so than when early on in the film, a supposed mourner sneezes over the deceased in his open casket. Inventively and stylishly directed, it perhaps lacks those directorial flourishes of you-know-who which stay in the memory, but the dialogue is smart, witty and occasionally risqué, the Parisian locations highly attractive and the playing excellent by all throughout.A fine homage to Hitch but with enough of its own identity and flair to entertain satisfactorily on its own merits.

I first saw charade when I was 14. I had found it amongst a few surviving video tapes in my parents bedroom. I was playing hooky that day, and I decided to see the movie. I dragged my father's ancient VCR out of the storage room and started the film. Of course at first I was bored. I was used to seeing modern crap, but then before I knew it I was pissing on the cowling. I had fallen in love with the film. Charade is a forgotten Masterpiece, it has a stellar cast, (screen legends Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Mathua), great characterization, and of course a great plot. Those of you who have seen Cary Grant films know that normally he's the romantic guy, but in this film hes multi layered and puts on a very dynamic performance. The cinematography is futuristic, the music is cool and gives you this eerie feeling. Hitchcock's overrated north by Northwest is utter crap compared to this!!!!!!