Ivan Passer’s caper comedy has one of the more convoluted plots I’ve encountered; not difficult to understand while watching the film, mind you, just absurdly complicated to explain. Given that it concerns an attempt by the Mafia to buy a Swiss bank for money laundering purposes as thought up by a bright Brit (Michael Caine), that needs an Italian Prince (Louis Jourdan in a genuinely good performance, which is not something I say lightly or often about the man) to work, and will eventually involve an attempt to break the world’s silver monopoly with silver provided by a pair of Moroccan ex-nobility (Stéphane Audran and David Warner), as well as a romance sub-plot with Cybill Shepherd in one of the least convincing attempts to make a beautiful woman look frumpy, this should be rather a good time.
Yet it isn’t. Worse, the film doesn’t work for reasons that are really hard to explain. Especially when you keep in mind that not one of the actors puts in a bad or lazy performance (one might argue about Shepherd here, but she simply appears to try and have fun with a not terribly interesting role, and is at the very least charming as hell in the role), and that the script contains about one funny or clever idea a minute. Passer’s direction certainly isn’t offensive either. It does lack a certain degree of spark that would probably be helpful to the movie, but the director paces scenes well, and generally gets out of the way of his cast.
Still, there’s a curious lack of impact to everything in Silver Bears: jokes, the decidedly pretty locations, the plot, the perfectly good performances are all there. Yet somehow, they manage to leave little impression, at least on this viewer.
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