Hopscotch

A film about a man who leaves an intelligence service. Kendig is a former field officer. He did his job well but finished an operation his own way and let a Soviet counterpart go. His new chief will not forgive it. Myerson pulls him to a desk and puts him on filing. Kendig takes his own file and puts it through the shredder. Then he resigns. He has an idea. He will write a book describing every dirty piece of business the service has done, and post the chapters as he writes them. From there the film is a story of running. Austria, Germany, England, Bermuda and America; a change of place in every section. Isobel is an old friend. She lives in Salzburg, is well off, and provides him with both a house and a plan. The chapters go to the service, to British intelligence and to the Soviets at the same time. Everyone is looking for him. Kendig does not hide. He keeps appearing, telephones, and leaves addresses for his pursuers. What the narrative is interested in is not espionage but humiliation: everything the man does is to prove one thing to a manager, which of them is better. Cutter's line is the film's balance. His former student runs the pursuit but is quietly on his side. The tone is light. There is almost no violence; the chase is conducted with bureaucracy, telephones and paper. In one scene his own house is surrounded. He is inside and somewhere else at the same time, and it is the film's best constructed joke. Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Sam Waterston and Ned Beatty are in the cast. Ronald Neame directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes gentle spy comedy and Walter Matthau. Who it is not for: anyone looking for tension; no real sense of danger is ever established and the outcome can be guessed from the start.