THE HONORARY CONSUL aka BEYOND THE LIMIT (1983) - Movie Review

Director: John Mackenzie
Starring: Richard Gere, Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins, Joaquim de Almeida, Elpidia Carrillo
Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Writer: Christopher Hampton
Runtime: 104 min
Rated: R
Buy This Movie: Blu-ray (Amazon), DVD (Amazon)

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Synopsis:

Dr. Eduardo Plarr (Richard Gere), despite the name is an Anglo working in a Latin American country. His work is a return home after several years. He begins to form and re-establish friendships and begins an affair. All of this comes together to create problems when he is asked to help revolutionaries kidnap a diplomat (Michael Caine).

Review:

"The Honorary Consul", also known as "Beyond the Limit" in the US, is most likely one of the worst Graham Greene adaptation in the history of cinema. There's a clumsiness to the way director John Mackenzie ("The Fourth Protocol", "The Long Good Friday") approaches this story, and despite a few interesting elements here and there, it doesn't rise above a mediocre thriller.

As with most Greene stories, you get the usual mix of romance and political intrigue, however, Mackenzie fails to get the quantities right and the end result is a boring, lifeless mess. Character motivations are muddled, the narrative jumps from one scene to the other without cohesion, and only the third act shows some signs of a slightly better movie, but at that point it's too little, too late.

Richard Gere is completely miscast, probably in an effort to replicate the success of his role in "American Gigolo". He's mechanical and dull, as if the actor was incapable to grasp the essence of his role. Gere's Eduardo Plarr is an amoral and cynical character, who digs himself deeper into a dead-end situation, and his arc could have amounted to something special with a better script and actor. His romantic interest is just as poorly written and played by Elpidia Carrillo ("Predator"), who spends a lot of her screen time naked.

It's not all bad acting, though. Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins are much better than the movie deserves, and even received BAFTA nominations. The former plays the titular honorary British consul and is a pleasure to watch, bringing unexpected humanity to his character, who becomes sort of the moral center of this story. Hoskins stars as Colonel Perez, the local police chief, who takes a liking to Plarr, but would not hesitate to put him down should they find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. A very young Joaquim de Almeida also appears in one of his first roles.

Although there are occasional sparks of what could have been a solid thriller, it's just a middling and unexciting movie, and definitely not worth wasting 100 minutes of your life on.

SCORE: 5.5/10