Hopscotch

1980 action comedy

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 18/20)

Plot: When a crafty CIA guy is forced to take a desk job, he decides to retire instead and fuck with them. He begins writing a tell-all memoir guaranteed to tick off people on both sides of the Cold War and tries to remain one step ahead of everybody as they try to stop him.

Does anybody else get Walter Matthau and Martin Landau completely confused? It's the sort of thing that should disqualify me from having a movie blog.

This is cute, the sort of thing that somebody like George Clooney would probably star in if it was made today. Matthau or Landau or whoever is in this movie isn't conventionally handsome, probably not the type of fellow whom the fetching Glenda Jackson would really be attracted to, but he's got this charm and this intelligent face that makes you believe him as this trollish James Bond character. The movie's humorous, but probably more fun than funny as you watch all his plans unfold and try to keep up with him just like the characters he's messing with.

Walter Matthau and Marin Landau, the alligator and crocodile of film actors.