Cabo Blanco (1980)
6/10
A Miss is Just a Miss
19 July 2021
This 'spiritual remake' of CASABANCA about an American who runs a Peruvian hotel/nightclub harboring a French woman who knows about a local sunken ship's treasure is also similar to future blockbuster TITANIC...

And for some reason the cache-seeking ship's captain, sending a mini-sub to investigate, narrates... in the form of youthful surrogate hero Simon MacCorkindale, eventually injured since this is, after all, a Bronson vehicle...

But unlike the Bogart classic, Dominique Sanda and Bronson's Giff Hoyt didn't have a previous affair (though he did with Robard's troubled blonde moll, Carmella Sparv, a far better actress)...

And yet she DID have a former French lover (and his old friend) who provided details about that treasure which... sadly, since fortune hunting neo noirs are usually pretty good... gets buried in a limited plot concerning pressure from the second/third of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, Jason Robards, as the main villain, a former Nazi, even less threatening than his native law-leg Fernando Rey or Aryan soldier Denny Miller...

Meanwhile the biggest shame is CABO has fantastically manned camera-direction by J. Lee Thompson, seeming more in-tune with a modern (1980) thriller that the wardrobe and certain technological aspects also resemble...

And while primed to beat a lot of people up, Charlie's never in any real danger throughout.
1 out of 1 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed