AllMovie

Director Stephen Frears was working with a talented cast and a strong script for his BBC production of Saigon: Year of the Cat, but the film fails to match the powerful and trenchant mix of the personal and the political found in his later theatrical films, My Beautiful Launderette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. David Hare's screenplay certainly contains all the elements of a fine political drama. The backdrop -- the fall of Saigon -- is fascinating subject matter that has not been explored frequently on film. The main characters, Barbara (Judi Dench) and Bob (Frederic Forrest, best known for playing Chef in Apocalypse Now) are well drawn. Their actions and dialogue are believable and intriguing down to the finest detail. Dramatizing the intimate details of this crucial historical moment, such as the way the bank manager, Mr. Halliwell (Chic Murray), calmly assists a customer while being held at gunpoint, or the matter-of-fact manner in which Bob tells Barbara his views on torturing political prisoners, is where Frears' film is its strongest. These moments give insight into both the characters and the political climate. Frears was clearly hampered, in part, by the film's budget. It was audacious to even attempt to depict a crisis of this scale on a low budget, but the results are sometimes unintentionally amusing. Showing people running down a hallway yelling, for example, does not effectively dramatize a bomber attack on the presidential palace. There is also an embarrassing sequence wherein an extra playing a soldier at the U.S. embassy clearly pretends to fire his rifle, while the gunshot sounds are dubbed in. These moments give the film an irredeemable air of sloppiness, as does the uneven acting of the supporting players. This hampers the cumulative dramatic impact that the filmmakers are trying to generate.