Overrated

As Good As It Gets

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Jaclyn Smith is a professor at a Midwestern university. When her husband is killed in an accident, she feels adrift and accepts an appointment as ambassador to Rumania, hauling her young daughter (Ari Meyers) along. It's a tough job. I mean -- who knows anything about Rumania? It sounds a little like a mental illness. "I think he has a touch of Rumania." Smith must learn to speak Rumanian, which is at least a Romance language descended from Latin, like French, Italian, and Spanish, but is after all pretty historically remote from its source. Then, in Bucharest, she meets her chief aid, a cocky, unshaven Robert Wagner, who quickly straightens up and flies right. She also meets a simpatico Christopher Casanove, who is working for the wrong side, unknown to her. R. J. Wagner straightens THAT problem out pronto. There's a lot of intrigue, which I won't go into.Jaclyn Smith, her daughter, and just about everyone at the American embassy is being stalked by an assassin known only as "Angel," whom the novel describes as "fat, ugly, and stupid." (The part was offered to me for reasons I can't imagine.) The victims are to be blown up at an embassy party. I won't disclose the means. The climactic chase and resolution involves the Marine embassy guards and the explosion is prevented by Skylight Ex Machina.What's most impressive about the film, aside from Jaclyn Smith's supernal beauty, is the way the director and photographer have turned Wilmington, North Carolina, into Bucharest. (They didn't do such a hot job of turning Wilmington into Kansas. Nobody could.) Wilmington, a charming, relaxed Southern town, really LOOKS like Rumania. An old warehouse down by the docks is convincingly turned into an infamous prison. There are enough old mansions scattered around that it must have been easy to pick one of particular splendor to serve as the embassy.The Marine guards were real Marines, recruited from nearby Camp Lejeune, where I taught night classes. Nice guys too. Many of the guests at the embassy party were genuine ethnics. The guy in the Arab head dress was ethnically Arab, for instance. The background persons were asked to speak in foreign languages if they could. I was teamed with a young French woman and, conversationally, rattled off the lyrics to "Chevalier de la Table Ronde," adding what I thought was an appropriately fatalistic Gallic shrug from time to time. "I haven't heard zat seence I was a child," she said. I suppose many others were doing the same thing.As a miniseries, it doesn't lack for pace. It's exotic-looking, mysterious, exciting, and pretty propulsive.

This is one of the best adaptation of Sidney Sheldon's books. It's fast, exciting, great locales, appealing characters and enjoyable from start to finish.This is Smith's first foray in this genre. Her on-screen chemistry with "Mr.Cool" himself, Robert Wagner is one of the reasons why this miniseries works. An all star cast miniseries.