Curaçao (1993)

I liked this movie. It wasn't an Oscar winner, but it was interesting. I was surprised that it wasn't predictable. William Petersen plays an exiled CIA agent called Steven Guerin. Geurin is exiled to the American Consulate in Curacao. He is constantly being watched by his own people due to his discontent. He is also being sought out by the enemy to become a double agent. Guerin gets entangled in a web of intrigue when his friend Cornelius(George C. Scott) gets him involved in an insurance scam. Cornelius has a record of his own involvement in the sinking of a cargo ship and the deaths of his crew for money in an act of insurance fraud. Cornelius leaves the evidence in Guerin's lap. Guerin is then caught between mobsters from South Africa and China. Petersen is wonderful as Guerin. The viewer can "taste" the character's discontent. I can't see any trace of what would become CSI's Gil Grissom. I have seen several of his early works and usually rent the movie before buying it if I liked it.. I would recommend all of them, especially "Gunshy". George C. Scott is wonderful as Cornelius. This is a role I wouldn't have expected him in. He is wonderful. Just enough to make the viewer pity him and just enough for the audience to loath him.This movie is a keeper and I have already purchased it.

Steven Guerin is a disgraced fed working a dead-end security job on the beautiful south Caribbean island of Curaçao when suddenly things go a bit crazy. A friend confesses his part in a terrible crime which is now catching up with him, a dangerous South African spy offers him a suspicious job, and a beautiful colleague/lover from his past arrives to complicate matters. What's the right thing to do ?This glossy and enjoyable made-for-cable film is a stylish modern version of glamorous forties classics like To Have And Have Not or The Glass Key, all sultry dames, put-upon heroes, sneaky plot machinations and idyllic scenery. The Dutch Antilles setting of Curaçao is fabulous, with its lush tropical backdrops, steamy groves, sudden downpours, Venetian stylings and carnival atmosphere - it pretty much has erotic thriller stamped all over it. As too does Petersen, who burns through the Bogart/Cagney lead, smouldering intensity, speaking quietly, piercing the other actors with thoughtful stares. Scott has an interesting part as the cowardly bartender Wettering, the lynch-pin of the story, but is unusually ordinary and lumbers himself with a slightly lame accent. However, there is excellent support from Carmen (In The Mouth Of Madness) as the career-comes-first agent, Sayle (Gorky Park) as the nasty apartheid Boss, and Anglim (Haunted Summer) as the world-weary flatfoot. The whole thing is polished off with pleasing photography by Ellery Ryan and a good clattering spy story revolving around a purloined ship's manifest. A fine cable movie by Schultz, who's made some other interesting stuff (The Seventh Sign, To Walk With Lions). Scripted by James D. Buchanan, from his book The Prince Of Malta. The UK TV print has the rather insipid alternative title, Deadly Currents.

It is is very sad to see someone of the calibre of George C Scott in a low budget thriller which would have been better if the original novel was written by Graham Greene and directed by someone somewhat more experienced in the genre. NOT TO MENTION A BETTER CINEMATOGRAPHER. There are so many missed opportunities with the scenery and carnival merely glossed over, rather than captured to locate the movie solidly in the exotic setting of the novel.Elsewhere in the viewer comments on this site, one very astute observer complained about the variety of diabolically bad accents in this film. Ever since I saw George C Scott as Rochester in Jane Eyre, I have prayed for him NEVER to ever accept again a role which required him to assume a British accent. Just every now and then, he could just possibly pass for British or a very British sounding South African played obviously by an American actor. I can stomach Meryl Streep's extraordinarily laboured accents (both British and Australian) - at least she gets it right even though with every utterance, she demands that we marvel at her skill. Well, I am sorry that Mr. Scott is no Meryl Streep, and it just destroys the illusion - like having Michele Yeoh speak excruciating Mandarin with a strong Singaporean accent in Crouching Tiger etc.Peterson acts no differently than what we see on CSI. Except he is still very handsome and more or less slim in this movie. He is the Harrison Ford of TV. Same old expressions for every emotion, every situation. No on second thought, Ford has two - perplexed/pained and happy. I have never seen a smile on Mr. CSI!

I just saw this movie on TV. I watched it because I am a great fan of William Peterson and I thought he was appropriately moody and mysterious in it. I liked the story and the way it was told and the bits of "colour locale" of Curacao, i.e. "Karnaval", which lasts about half a year now, I have been told. George C. Scott was, well, George C. Scott. He was never a favorite of mine, but he did the usual job.What puzzled me is this: Trish vandeVere, Scott's last wife (how he ever could have picked this mediocre actress over the formidable COLLEEN DEWHURST will forever be a riddle to me, but then aging men do silly things) ... where was I ... Oh, ok, Ole Trish was billed as a major part, in the role of Rose.Did anyone who saw this movie ever see Trish, or a person named Rose? I did not. Perhaps she was cut out of the TV version, but it was already a made for TV movie... so what was up with that. Just billing and bucks?