The Return of Sam McCloud (1989 TV Movie)
God-awful schlock
13 October 2003
What a terrible pile of [expunged expletive].

No doubt scripted so that the American cast and crew could get a free sight-seeing tour to Britain, the majority of the action takes place in England, and London in particular. Some of it is clearly shot on London streets, but the rest is some sound-stage Hollywood cliché of "quaint little England", where every pub has a piano played all the time, where the trains still run on steam, and the sound of gunshots sends the police and Horseguards into a wild panic, leaving Sam McCloud to save the day, valiantly rescuing the damsel on a purloined Met Police horse, galloping down The Mall.

It's impossible to lay on too thickly how downright dreadful this pile of horse-manure is. McCloud was an entertaining series, bit a product of its time. It should have been allowed to stay dignified in death.

House boats don't moor at Westminster Pier (and didn't at the time it was filmed 14 years ago). Pawn shops don't handle firearms. There is an 8 hour time difference between the Great Britain and the mainland US. Dover is nowhere near the New Forest (as any goon reading an atlas could tell you).

Add to that a cheesy greenspeak monologue about the poor state of the planet and mankind's need to respect it, and it couldn't get any worse. (Yes it's true, but we don't need lecturing about it. Certainly not by some fictional prairie-wise New Mexico Marshal.)

Urrrch!
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