When the Germans invade northern France, they round up a hundred local men, including Anthony Hopkins. Being Nazis and all, they announce that ten of the prisoners will die, and leave it up to them to decide who. They decide on lots. Hopkins is one of the ten. He trades his lot with Timothy Watson, in return for all his goods. Watson leaves everything to his sister and mother.
Three years later, a bearded Hopkins is free and goes to his estate, where Kristen Scott Thomas and an ailing Brenda Bruce are in possession. They wait with fear and hatred Hopkins' return, so he claims to be a nobody and gets a job with them as a common laborer. Then one day,collaborator and fugitive Derek Jacobi, the son of one of the other men in the hundred, shows up, fleeing from the Resistance. He claims to be Anthony Hopkins.
It's based on a novel by Graham Greene that he turned into a script and left in the MGM archives in the mid-1940s. Director Jack Gold handles the film like it's a TV movie with enough of a budget for some extra location shooting. Hopkins plays his role in a repressed combination of shame for what he has done, love for Miss Thomas, and fear for the consequences of any revelation. With a better director, or a better lighting cameraman, the role might have worked. As it is, those who are familiar with Greene's world will understand what is going on. Those who approach it without any background will just find it bizarre.
Three years later, a bearded Hopkins is free and goes to his estate, where Kristen Scott Thomas and an ailing Brenda Bruce are in possession. They wait with fear and hatred Hopkins' return, so he claims to be a nobody and gets a job with them as a common laborer. Then one day,collaborator and fugitive Derek Jacobi, the son of one of the other men in the hundred, shows up, fleeing from the Resistance. He claims to be Anthony Hopkins.
It's based on a novel by Graham Greene that he turned into a script and left in the MGM archives in the mid-1940s. Director Jack Gold handles the film like it's a TV movie with enough of a budget for some extra location shooting. Hopkins plays his role in a repressed combination of shame for what he has done, love for Miss Thomas, and fear for the consequences of any revelation. With a better director, or a better lighting cameraman, the role might have worked. As it is, those who are familiar with Greene's world will understand what is going on. Those who approach it without any background will just find it bizarre.