Saint Jack

A film set in Singapore. Jack Flowers is American. He works at the docks, speaks English and makes a living finding foreigners in the city what they want. He wants to set up his own business: a clean, orderly place run by his own rules. He opens it. Then the people who hold the order of the city will not have it and the place is shut. Jack starts again. Meanwhile the war in Vietnam is going on nearby and Singapore fills with soldiers on leave. An American official comes with an offer: money in exchange for gathering information about someone. The question at the centre is not morality but a boundary: Jack has done many things, but he has a line of his own and the offer sits exactly on it. The source is Paul Theroux's novel. It was shot in Singapore, and the local authorities were told the film was about something else; once it was finished it could not be shown in the country for many years. Ben Gazzara plays Jack and the film rests almost entirely on him. Denholm Elliott and James Villiers are in the cast, and the director appears in a small part. Peter Bogdanovich directed. A solid choice for anyone who likes the character films of the 1970s and portraits of cities. For a viewer looking for plot, the narrative is loose and the film is content to watch a life.