Sol Madrid (1968)

Sol Madrid (1968) is something of an oddball espionage thriller that never really finds a pace or tone and never fully settles into a format, seemingly unable to decide whether it wants to be an action movie, a tense crime thriller or a twisty spy movie.  While much of the film's problems stem from an indifferent script which never seems to know where it is going with any degree of certainty, its biggest problem lies in a miscast lead.  David McCallum's casting as the eponymous undercover narcotics agent was doubtless motivated by his recent popularity playing Ilya Kuryakin in The Man From Uncle TV series, but whereas there he was the second lead, effectively a supporting character to Robert Vaughn's Napoleon Solo, here he is expected to carry the film as a ruthless no-nonsense, two fisted secret agent, which he simply lacks the necessary charisma or screen presence to pull off.  McCallum tended to specialise in quieter, more intellectual characters who achieved their ends through relatively subtle and more thoughtful means.  The complete opposite of his character in Sol Madrid.  With McCallum's somewhat muted performance in the lead, it is hardly surprising that other performers move in to fill the vacuum, most notably Telly Savalas as Dietrich, one of the main villains, who delivers a charismatic and often dominant performance.  Ricardo Montalban, as one of Madrid's South-of-the border allies, who might not be all that he seems, also turns in a typically colourful and charismatic performance, easily eclipsing McCallum every time they share screen time.  Other cast members fare less well, with Stella Stevens as the female lead feeling as miscast as McCallum and enjoying zero onscreen chemistry with him, while Rip Torn makes for a generic feeling villain and Michael Ansara's Mexican police captain a stock figure, with both roles badly underwritten,

While the most obvious inspiration for Sol Madrid would seem to be the Bond movies, particularly the earliest examples with Connery's much tougher interpretation of 007, with its tough, ruthless and often seemingly amoral central character, some aspects of the script, with McCallum trying to play the two main hoods off against each other and its various plot twists would seem to indicate that the makers might also have had the Michael Caine starring Len Deighton 'Harry Palmer' adaptations.  Whichever the inspiration, the execution is scuppered by McCallum's lead, who is neither as convincingly tough as Connery nor as smart and charismatic as Caine's Palmer, instead, mor often than not, coming over as dull and dislikable.  None of which is to say that Sol Madrid doesn't have its pleasures - for one thing it makes good use of some colourful Acapulco locations, plus director Brian G Hutton - whose next two projects would be the all action Clint Eastwood war pictures Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Kelly's Heroes (1970) - handles the action scenes well.  The problem is that, for a film of this type, there simply aren't enough of them. The plot keeps digressing, with valuable running time taken up with a drug smuggling via oil pipeline caper by McCallum in order to ingratiate himself with Savalas, a kidnap plot that removes Stevens from the film for a large part of its running time and various crosses and double crosses, none of are very interestingly executed and don't really feel as if they are advancing the plot in any meaningful way.  The main plot, with Madrid going South of the border to track down Mafia man Rip Torn's accountant and persuade him to turn state's evidence, coercing Torn's ex-girlfriend and the accountant's co-conspirator in ripping off the mob for a large sum of money, makes the film feel more like a crime thriller than the espionage movie format it is clearly trying to emulate.  Overall, Sol Madrid is a misfire, but one with some incidental pleasures, most particularly Telly Savalas, nice locations and some fitfully decent direction.