Aspiring young novelist Tony Zonis (Alexis Denisof) wants to write the next great suspense thriller, so he decides to study the work of master crime writer, Willard Hope (Christopher Lee). Together, they pick through random newspaper stories, looking for the unusual event that will make a good thriller. What they find is murder. A government cover-up... an international scandal... and the bodies are just beginning to fall into place. Now Tony isn't just writing the next best-seller... he's writing his own obituary.
Reviews
It's OK. The "Willard Hope Technique," whereby someone trying to write cuts newspaper articles out at random and assembles them to create a plot for a novel gets a young fan of Hope into trouble when he tries it for himself. The technique recalls Harry Stephen Keeler's "webwork" which is essentially the same. Sort of a poorer version of Three Days of the Condor, where someone stumbles across a real plot.
When you start something, finish it. That is the mantra spoken often in this movie. While the story starts slow, it builds towards an exciting end. The characters, both major and minor, are well drawn, complete with personality quirks, that add depth and interest to the story. Alexis Denisof, in his film debut, does a great job portraying Tony's innocent exuberance, and determination to start what he has finished. This film gets better every time I watch it.
One of those movies where you have to wait until the last 30 minutes to appreciate the first hour. In other words: good plot on the whole, but slow to start. I found the film to be interesting only when it became obvious that Tony, the young would-be writer, is willing to risk a lot in order to assume the freedom of being "non-conformist", which is, in his own words, one of the main roles of an artist in any society, and which often means assuming a real risk, even in the US.