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k_tomas_dolan
Reviews
The Clones (1973)
Off to an engaging start, but then gets lost
I'm impressed with Michael Greene's professionalism and loyalty to this film, because he manages somehow to carry the movie, while not looking embarrassed by how confused and adrift this movie is, or how lifeless the dialog.
So much of the potential generated in the first 10 or 15 minutes for mystery, uncertainty about identity and interesting confrontations in this movie is just simply squandered. Despite the short schedule and meager budget, it had me believing in it early on, but then it never delivered.
People get in the same room but the opportunity for driving the story and characters forward is consistently ignored or not realized. There's little or no insight into minds or motivations. No real conflict, external or internal, no nuance to the characters. Little or no doubt along the way who is on which side. No difficult decisions, no points of no return, no regret, etc.
A lot of it is just one chase scene after another in which this worldwide conspiracy somehow expects a grand total of two knuckle- head henchmen in a single car to keep its sinister secrets from getting out.
Dishonorable mention must also go to the sound department. In some cases, rather than re-recording all of the dialog, original and post-sync are cut together in a more-than-usually noticeable way, and the mix between the two inconsistent enough that out-of-frame people sometimes sound like they are in the next room. Further, there were some scenes in which the visuals failed to convey a sense of imminent danger and suspense, and efforts were instead made to prop them up by the twiddling of knobs on what was presumably some sort of synthesizer. The racket raised sometimes actually fulfills its goal, at least to some degree, but for the most part is just annoying and too sharp, and at times even disturbing and obnoxious. If memory servers, other comparable movies like Idaho Transfer committed similar noisy sins. Perhaps it was the style of the day.
I didn't expect much from this production, but the sound really kept defying me to keep watching with charitable eyes.
Probably the only positive thing I take away, is the bizarrely far- out drugged scene where Greene is given the task of negotiating a straight hallway without accidentally killing any of the small mammals that inexplicably litter his staggering path. Yes, small mammals. I remember thinking "That sounded weirdly like a cat. There actually is a cat there? Why is that cat there?" Meanwhile, the camera operator is struggling with not insignificant vigor to be inventive and imaginative in a most annoying and unimaginative way.
That cracked me up, not least to see Greene being such a great sport through that challenge to his craft and dignity.
Even though I did root for the movie, and did stay with it until the end, all I was left with was a feeling that nobody involved really cared about this movie. It would have taken so little, I think, to make it really interesting.