hyped garbage

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The 70s was when British director Michael Winner was in his prime and this taut Cold War spy thriller might be his best piece. Well definitely up there with other titles such as another Burt Lancaster feature 'Lawman (1971)' and some Charles Bronson efforts; 'Chato's Land (1971)', 'The Mechanic (1972)', 'The Stone Killer (1973)' and his influential 'Death Wish (1974)'. These are some films, and Winner's signature style streams through them. Although Winner has many detractors, but I don't really see eye to eye with it.'Scorpio' might seem customary, but on this occasion there's an old fashion tailoring to it like a thoughtful game of chess. It's a fascinatingly complex, sleek and low-key process, than anything explosive. When it's all about the narrative's cunning moves, staying one step ahead of your competitor and the skill of deception. The cynical material does come to be dry on the dramatic and emotional front, but gains intrigue in the characters and their plights. Action features very little, but when it does occur it's worthwhile. Winner's stringently alarming grip (no-frills style) is gustily suspenseful and brutal. The chase scenes and altercations are effectively pulsating (as his got an eye for ballistic action) when they come into play, due to the overall mellow pace (although time flies by) and talkative nature (with a tough, tight-lipped script) that cements itself in this cat and mouse format. This one gradually builds (just like Jerry Fielding's terrifically soaring multi-layered, hot-wire score) upon its story to deliver its disguised twists and calculative avenues. The backdrop here (largely that of the Vienna's stunningly detailed architecture setting) is caught by boldly crisp camera-work as it follows the activity with many angular angles and zooms. True Winner craftsmanship, just like his blunt inter-cutting editing, which on this project is probably his most complete. Lending greatly to the set-up is a stellar cast. Burt Lancaster is poignantly good in confidently crafty turn as CIA agent Cross that's wanted dead by his own bosses and across from him is a broodingly collected and tactical Alain Delon as the French assassin Scorpio asked to take him out. These are two characters (the dinosaur and the new blood) that respect each other. There's strong support offered by Paul Scofield, John Colicos and Gayle Hunnicutt.

Lancaster, Delon, and Scofield are amazing in this complex, character-driven spy thriller. For some reason, Winner's direction has come in for a lot of criticism, but I thought it was superb (at least here; haven't seen any of his other works). The big action sequence is beautifully shot, edited, and staged -- I liked it far better than "The French Connection"; indeed, "Black Sunday" is the only '70s thriller I've seen with better action. It's just so realistic!The biggest flaw I can see is that the major action sequence is so exciting that all the stuff that comes after it can seem a bit dull and overextended by comparison. Still, it's good, thought-provoking material with a cynical Le Carre edge. Without spoiling the end, let's just say that whether or not you think it "works", it certainly has an emotional impact.The supporting cast (Joanne Linville, John Colicos, J.D. Cannon, Frederick Jaeger, Shmuel Rodensky, et al.) is quite good, and the script (co-written by famed TV producer David Rintels) is filled with quotable dialogue and subtle bits that illuminate the characters, as well as clever pieces of "spy business" that feel authentic (whether or not they are).Bottom line: One of the best films of its kind.

Retirement is not always possible for a spy, particularly an agent caught in the no-man's-land between the two superpowers... Cross (Burt Lancaster) is such a spy in Michael Winner's 'Scorpio.' Released at a time when disclosures about CIA and FBI abuses were receiving wider acceptance, 'Scorpio' might have become a controversial success, but was forestalled by Costa-Gavras' more factual 'State of Siege.'A melodramatic and threatening spy film, 'Scorpio' had two rival protagonists: Cross, an experienced CIA agent being hunted by his former colleagues, and a former French paratroop officer, Jean Laurier (Alain Delon), now a 'CIA contract button man,' a professional assassin, code-name Scorpio... Irritated by the Frenchman's independence, the CIA chief McLeod (John Colicos) has had heroin planted in his bedroom to make the hired killer more pliable... Threatened with a drug arrest, Scorpio has no choice but to accept the assignment to kill Cross, although McLeod sugars the pill with promises of a fat bonus and Cross' job as the CIA's man in the Middle East...Although told that Cross has been a double-agent working for the "opposition," Scorpio remains doubtful... In the meantime, by a series of clever tricks and tactics, Cross has not only managed to evade the CIA men following him, but has arrived in the favorite city for cinematic intrigue, Vienna, Austria...The most part of the film's action and some of its best sequences take place in the country on the Danube River where the mystery surrounding Cross deepens... In a nighttime rendezvous on a deserted street, Cross is met by a Viennese worker who is whistling, perhaps as a signal or out of habit, the "lnternationale."The husky-voiced Cross says, "It's been a long time since Spain," to which the man responds, "The best died there," and gives Cross directions to meet two more "cut-outs." This kind of political reference occurred frequently in the film's dialog as part of the sympathetic characterization of Cross as envisioned by an intelligent and well written script...In a sequence that was easily the equal of some of the best spy films, Cross and his Soviet counterpart, Sergei Zharkov (Paul Scofield), laughingly discuss their mutual reject for their bosses and the identical young men who support both the CIA and KGB... While Cross accepts Zharkov's evaluation of themselves as a pair of premature anti-fascists, he can not understand Zharkov's professed belief in Communism after years spent in a Stalinist labor camp and the recent invasion of Czechoslovakia... In a later scene when Zharkov tries to get help from his superiors and is refused, the embassy official is given a dose of Zharkov's irony when told of his resemblance to another man 'who didn't leave his name, but was trying to build socialism in one country out of the bones from a Charnel house' –as strong an indictment of Stalin's Russia as any Cold War film, but more intelligent and more skillfully presented...The film's major element was the state of tension in which the audience was held, until the final minutes viewers could be certain of Cross true identity, and CIA director, the eccentric hated human being represented by McLeod...The CIA chief appeared more ruthless than any other character... He was willing to frame Scorpio on a false charge, to endanger his own agents needlessly and even to have Cross' wife murdered in an unsuccessfully burglary attempt... There was even a hint of Nazi persecution, since one of Cross' wartime friends, Max (Shmul Rodensky), was killed during an interrogation conducted by a local Viennese thug who had laughed cleverly at the mention of Max's imprisonment in a concentration camp...The problem of Cross's guilt or innocence concentrated on Scorpio, who knew enough to distrust McLeod yet is pushed to fulfill his assignment... In a nighttime scene shot in a huge enclosed botanical garden, Scorpio meets Cross and their dialog is a clever mixture of plot development and characterization... To the Frenchman's direct question whether he is a traitor or not, Cross tells Scorpio that he reminds him of a little girl in her white Communion dress looking for God, but that since Scorpio has the soul of a torturer his need is even greater... Cross denies being a double-agent and tells Scorpio that McLeod wanted him eliminated as well...Scorpio's conversations gave the film its uniquely complex political coloration... Lancaster gave his character the air of a worldly wise cynic whose ties to the Russians were as mercenary as they were emotional.. With considerable assets in three separate bank accounts, Cross' dismissal of Zharkov's Communist blind faith had a firm basis... Yet, Cross had all the 1930's liberal hypotheses: The whistled "Internationale," the reference to Spain, the twenty-year friendship with Zharkov, his obvious affection for Max and Cross' contacts among Washington, D.C. area Blacks were all hints of his real political sympathies... His warnings to Scorpio were justified, and Cross's treason seemed minor compared to the CIA's criminal behavior... The traditional reference points (affection for his wife and friends) all proclaimed Cross' innocence, and in fact, the CIA stood more condemned in the film... If it hadn't been for its irregular pacing, the juxtaposition of slow, talky scenes with far too gymnastic thriller consequences, 'Scorpio' might have been a domestic 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.' The spy film that did eventually serve this role appeared in 1975, in Sydney Pollack's 'Three Days of the Condor.'

It is rare nowadays to get such a good plot as this one. This film is deleted in England so I bought an American copy via Amazon - I like it so much.I won`t go into the plot simply to say that this is first rate stuff with great atmosphere.10 out of 10.