Back in the sixties Roger Moore don the persona of Simon Templar, known to his fans as The Saint. From the small tube to the Silver Screen, our hero has arisen to a modern audience. With the superb talents of Val Kilmer, the saint is out to accomplish two goals. First he attempts to secure his life-long ambition of amassing $1 billion dollars, and second to perform three miracles. In the process, he encounters both friends and life threatening villains. In this episode, the Saint attempts to save the crumbling Soviet Empire' energy supply, by revamping the scientific and long sought-after formula of Cold Fusion. In this story, he helps brainy, Dr. Lev Botvin, (Henry Goodman) perfect the celebrated formula of Physist Emma Russell, (Elisabeth Shue). The re-energized formula will replenish Russia's dwindling energy and save the Premiere of Russia from the anti-government villains played adroitly by (Rade Serbedzija),Ivan Tretiak, (Valeri Nikolayev) and Vereshagin (Michael Byrne),the archenemies of Templar. Alun Armstrong is believable as Inspector Teal. The film is fast paced and action oriented with plenty of drama, guns, explosions and international intrigue. Kilmer is fantastic and I believe this will become a classic among all the great films of his career. ****

The Saint is a Robin Hood type criminal character devised by Leslie Charteris a Chinese Singaporean. The Saint had a series of short films in the 1940s however made it big when Roger Moore portrayed him for a television series in the 1960s that became an international hit.

In this big budget film starring Val Kilmer we have an attempt to re- invent the character. As a homage to Charteris we have scenes of him as a boy in a Catholic boarding school in the Far East. In the present day he is a criminal for hire who steals secrets and formulas and uses aliases that are Catholic Saints and is a master of disguise.

The Saint is hired by a Russian businessman and aspiring politician to get a secret cold fusion formula from a young scientist played by Elisabeth Shue. You never for a moment buy Shue as a brilliant scientist and Kilmer falls for her and finds out that he needs to outwit the Russians and save the Russian Premiere as well as saving Shue.

The story is all over the place and Shue's gut feeling that her formula is right without any scientific basis is laughable. There is good chemistry between Kilmer and Shue but the film itself is up and down in tempo and Kilmer never behaves like The Saint we know from the TV series.

Ultimately Kilmer seems to be enjoying himself trying different accents but he never comes across The Saint which is the film's biggest failing.

THE SAINT is a truly abominable Hollywood version of the popular TV series and Leslie Charteris novels. Inevitably it has almost nothing to do with them apart from the main character's name. This one instead seems to be a sub-Bondian kind of movie with bits of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE added to the mix. Val Kilmer plays the character as a ladies' man given to dressing up in the most ridiculous disguises ever; how anyone is fooled by these non-costumes is anyone's guess. The plot is interminably dull and there's no decent action to speak of, nor suspense to enjoy either, just a varied supporting cast gone to waste.