The author of The Trial and The Castle is caught up in a storyline similar to one of his own — like H.G. Wells in Time after Time or Hammett in Hammett. Unpersuasive, paceless, photographed in inky black-and-white most of the time and in jaundiced color for fifteen minutes, it's sort of a dim sophomore's idea of an "art film" ca. 1964. Actually — not sort of — it's Steven Soderbergh's idea of one. Joel Grey is like a duck taking to water as the official and officious office snitch; and a couple of curious chase scenes — one involving a stalled elevator, the other a domelike magnifying lens — enliven matters momentarily. Jeremy Irons, Theresa Russell, Ian Holm, Alec Guinness. (1991) — Duncan Shepherd
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