![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RpqXqo6GM7s/TAgVn5iA5CI/AAAAAAAABCI/g0XvL5e4O50/s400/0000+WWII+MARA+16.png)
Warner Bros., 97 mins.
John Huston's Across the Pacific ('42) is a convoluted makeshift potboiler starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet in a blatant The Maltese Falcon ('41) reunion. It's one of those lesser Bogart vehicles that's more about the fedora and the wisecracks than anything else.
Essentially a noirish spy-thriller set just days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it follows a U.S. spy (Bogart) who boards a Japanese ship en route to China where he meets two fellow passengers, a large, quietly observant oaf (Greenstreet) and a flirty Canadian (Astor). All of them seem to have secrets to hide and it's only a matter of time before they (and the audience) can figure it out.
But in a film like Across the Pacific, where revelations and twists pile up like timber, it's best to simply enjoy the actors and the conceited, sharp-edged dialogue - trying to decipher the ins and outs of such a half-baked espionage whopper in retrospect seems fruitless.
![](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RpqXqo6GM7s/TAgVnVHxn-I/AAAAAAAABCA/cIGQ091Bqb8/s400/Across+the+Pacific+1.jpg)
Luckily by the end of this whiz-bang spy-puzzler, the sides are aligned and the task at hand plainly evident. Bogart carries us through the more nebulous and inane plot turns, even through an unintentionally hilarious use of a model plane in the climactic action scene. Finally, Bogie saves the day - what he did exactly, and how, we're still not really sure. [B]
No comments:
Post a Comment