Scrolling through Tubi, I came across this movie. The title intrigued me, and I was ready for some excitement. Spy movie! Harry Palmer (our main character) is from a series of books by Len Deighton.
Harry (Michael Caine) comes home with his Corn Flakes and finds his previous employer, the Colonel, searching his home. The government wants him back for an important case, but Harry isn't interested. Right after the man leaves, Harry gets a call from a robot telling him he's received a key and 200 pounds. All he has to do is deliver a package. Harry agrees, and he's off to deliver eggs to Finland.
The plot of this movie is crazy. After Harry delivers the eggs to his naked friend, he finds a dead body and takes the job with the government. A man is trying to wage war on communism by starting a war between Russia and Latvia. Or something. The second half of the film, from when Harry goes to Texas until the end, is basically the crazy Texas oilman and his invasion.
I'm curious if Palmer is as useless in the book as he is in this movie. Basically, he doesn't serve a purpose. He doesn't collect the eggs for his government, he gets captured all the time, and he isn't even responsible for stopping Crazy Texas Man. I did like he was left out on the ice at the end of the movie. It seemed fitting.
The other thing I want to mention is the opening credits. They are so cringey. James Bond's first movie was in 1962, and I'm guessing these were supposed to mimic those. But they were awful. I don't know what they were thinking, but they should've done something different.
Overall, this movie started out ok, but it got boring pretty fast. Maybe the other movies in the series had some of the humor I saw glimpses of, but I was just confused. Palmer was the worst spy ever. My favorite character was the Russian Colonel Stok (Oskar Homolka). He was funny and crafty. Props to him helping me get to the end of the film.
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