WJ Gibson This is when you boil it down, a story about conscience. Conscience being pulled this way and that by the conflicting poles of revenge and justice. If you like Sam Elliott's work and I do, you will very much enjoy this spy story. The story is not overwhelmingly original but the way the steps unfold, I stayed intrigued by it all the way. The assembly of details and camera style and the music all very high quality choices. "Cal Dexter" has more complexity than many similar characters of this genre. Timothy Hutton does a lot with little dialog. Lucy Russell was attention grabbing in a small part. I look forward to seeing more of her work. I liked the settings (South Africa in particular) and the overall visual style.

tom-darwin With no one wanting to hear about Iraq anymore, Vietnam as remote as the War of the Austrian Succession and "24's" lock on the Depraved Terrorist gig, we're heading back to the Balkans. This time we're going with intellectual thrillmeister Frederick Forsythe ("The Day of the Jackal"), cool-as-ice screenwriter Alan Sharp ("Ulzana's Raid") & executive producer Wolfgang Petersen ("Das Boot," "The Perfect Storm"). To get there, we all have to climb together on one of those tiny bicycles that bears ride in the circus. Grizzled Vietnam vet Dexter (Elliott, in the worst role of his life) is an avenging angel-for-hire, either as a lawyer or a mercenary (same difference). He takes a job via classified ad & cell phone to protect his anonymity (wouldn't John Wayne have done the same?) to find the saintly aid-worker son of guilt-ridden tycoon Edmonds (Hope, dazed & neurotic) who's disappeared in Bosnia. After impressing us with how depraved Serb militias can be (heard something about that, did you?), we embark with Wild Bill Rambo Bond on a Quest for Justice that takes us from one exotic, budget-priced location to the next. Cadaverous CIA pencilneck Devereaux (Cromwell, who convincingly mutters catchphrases like "not an option" & "ends justify the means") wants to stop The Fastest Gun in Eastern Europe. Or does he? It's so bad on every level that you won't care. The meticulous description of operational details that Forsythe pioneered forty years ago has been retreaded more times than "The War of the Worlds" & is a big yawn in the Google age. But "Avenger" never bothers much with story details like character motivation or plot, so we're left to wonder why the carefully anonymous Dexter is so willing to let his enemies know he's coming. It brings to mind Otto in "A Fish Called Wanda" ("It's a smoke screen? Double bluff?"), but that was done for INTENTIONAL laughs. The action scenes rival the best that "South Park" has to offer. Without exception, the actors are excruciatingly bad. Elliott is a mishmash of samurai-ninja Honorable Warrior, slick secret agent, aw-shucks good-guy, wise philosopher, technical wizard & PTSD nutjob. Oh, and Truth, Justice & the American Way (or best two out of three). This is definitely one of those "What were they thinking when they upchucked this?" movies. If the batteries in your remote went dead & you've given away all those old "Police Academy" videos, you're in for a rough night.

lpdemm Nice to see Sam again. Much as I like watching his movies, I really hope this doesn't become just another series - maybe an infrequent series -like two or three a year. Its pretty obvious that there is a lot of background in this - and in order to keep up the production values, it needs to be treated like the Special Event that Sam is. It was just nice to see him looking like a regular person. But he still has that incredible voice (he's the voice of IBM and the Beef Council, too). There was lot of thought that went into this - lots of pre-production was very evident - it was well made - and worth the wait!!

bostonkevino I happened to surf past this last night, and I have to say it surprised me. I was a big Frederick Forsythe novel fan years ago, and I did not realize this was based on one of his books until the credits rolled.I missed the first half-hour (I'll watch it again sometime), but I was still able to enjoy every minute after that. I typically think about TV movies as being on a different scale - but this movie breaks the mold.If you enjoyed "Day of the Jackal" (the original) you'll really like this one too. The main character "Dexter" had just the right mix of "good guy, bad guy" and the cinematography of the locations/background made me feel like I was on the mission with him. Heck, even my wife liked it!