British international thief Simon Templar (Adam Rayner) is known as The Saint. Patricia (Eliza Dushku) is his girl Friday. They are recruited to rescue a kidnapped girl as a devastating past is revealed.

This character has had many reincarnations. This is generally inferior mostly due to the directing efforts of Ernie Barbarash who seems to have made a career of second tier B-movies. It's also notable for Roger Moore's final film. There is some fun chemistry between the leads but the movie doesn't have the writing to accentuate it. It's probably the biggest missed opportunity among so many others.

Eliza Dushku may have had worse roles, but is really underused in this. Add to this the really bland main player (Saint) and you will not wonder why this never took off. Apparently a TV show was planned, but if this right here was the pilot, you can see why nothing came out of it. It really is a shame, because the action part of it does work for a standard TV show.

So nothing special, but still something that you could watch if the main ingredients would have worked better. So script issues, too bland, no edges, forced upon conflict that is being swiped away towards the end, like it wasn't build up through the entire movie ... it's obviously a shame, but there are other things you can spend your time on of course

To know The Saint one must be truthful to the source material. The Saint as a character is brash, abrasive, annoyingly intelligent, and driven by a set a principals to do the right thing, even if "right" in any given instance is stealing, murder, or any other action that on the outside is technically a crime. "The ends justifies the means" is a kind of MO for The Saint, which creates a sort of dilemma - especially in the west - where we tend to regard all individuals - good and bad - to be subject to the same rules. But, is it really a crime if the subject had it coming to them? Such is life of The Saint - getting rich while sticking it to the bad guy. Or saving the girl. Or righting the wrong. Or insert cliché' here. Fun stuff all around.

Unfortunately, most of the texture of The Saint is lost in attempts to portray him just as a lovable, quip-flinging, thief. A sort of James Bond type who always has something witty to say at the right moment. Anyone who has read any of the Charteris novels would strongly disagree.

Which brings us to this latest attempt to put Saint on film. All the elements are there but watered down and cliché'd to the point of atrophy. Although this is the most lovingly adaptation attempt since the Roger Moore days. In short, I like this Saint, but the film won't get out of it's own way. There's been a strong push in Hollywood in recent decades to use technology as a panacea to whatever problem the antagonist might come across. Sixteen-inch steel vault door? No problem - just hack that sucker and in you go.

It gets real old real fast.

We want to see our heroes solve problems, not have them solved for them by inexplicable (and non-existent) technology. In the days of the original Saint - the 1920's and 1930's - you still had to do real detective work to solve mysteries. Now all one needs is a tablet and a wifi connection and you can tell everything about anything anytime anywhere.

Where's the fun in that?

So far as this film is concerned, this Simon Templar is more like the real Saint since Roger Moore - so watch it for that. Otherwise - or in addition to - go find a copy of Meet the Tiger and enjoy the real Saint.