Word: mcgoohan
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Perhaps Whitemore, who has written works for both stage and screen, has gotten the two genres confused. The premise of Pack of Lies could have created an excellent IV movie. An inspector from Scotland Yard, a Mr. Stewart (Patrick McGoohan), asks a suburban London couple if they might lend their upper floor for a bit of police surveillance work. Bob Jackson (George N. Martin) is willing to defer to the authority of Her Majesty's Representative, but his wife Barbara (Rosemary Harris) is not so sure...
...thoughtful enough that you could almost believe he has a radio transmitter in the basement (which he does). Ivy's accurate portrayal of a loudmouthed, gregarious American makes the audience cringe: it is doubly funny because she has convinced the Jackson that she and her husband are Canadian. McGoohan? What can you say about a man who can turn a casually waved cigarette into a deadly rhetorical weapon? But closet Prisoner fans should not go expecting to see No. 6 in civil service dotage; Stewart is the ultimate government spokesman, and McGoohan plays him to the hilt. The rest...
...nervous system. Darryl Revok (Lawrence Dane), a bad scanner, tries to form an underground league of scanners who will overthrow the U.S. government and establish "a civilization that will be the envy of the world." Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), a good scanner, is abducted by Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan) so that he can be trained to search out and destroy Revok. Mutant takeover of the world is hardly an original idea, but the main plot pales when compared to the staggering number of inanities Cronenberg pours into the film...
...premises into scary narratives; he can clothe his plots in sinuous camera movements and dynamite film tricks. What he cannot do is write or direct convincing dialogue. Sophisticated actors tend to sound silly when they deliver his messages: in Scanners, Hero Stephen Lack is too hammy, Evil Genius Patrick McGoohan too wry. But pleas for Old Vic or New Hollywood performances miss the point. If Lack, McGoohan and Heroine Jennifer O'Neill act like mannequins in a punk boutique window, fine. At any moment-at least in a David Cronenberg movie-the figures could escape to the street, walk...
...called Doc (Roberts Blossom), who raises chrysanthemums and paints portraits, not to mention a literary librarian (Paul Benjamin) and a cuddly Italian (Frank Ronzio) with a pet mouse. Next to these lovable guys, an average Boy Scout troop would seem like a bunch of Bowery bums. The warden (Patrick McGoohan), of course, is a sadistic horror. He speaks in malevolent epigrams ("Some are never destined to leave Alcatraz - alive") and carries on what appears to be a kinky relationship with his pocket nail clipper...