Kieran Green
'Silver Bears' is an enjoyable Clever caper in the tradition of 'The Sting' & 'Matchstick Men' Sir Michael Caine plays "Doc" Fletcher a Financial wizard who is sent by Mafia boss Joe Fiore Martin Balsam to buy a bank in Switzerland in order to launder their profits. Caine purchases a premises which is rather shabby and located above a pizzeria. Jourdan suggests that Caine invests in a silver mine owned by strange persian siblings Stéphane Audran and David Warner. the Silver mine attracts the attention of some of the most powerful people in the silver business. all is not what it seems as everyone is out to swindle Caine and company 'Silver Bears' also stars a fresh faced Jay Leno and kooky Cybill Shepherd.
manuel-pestalozzi
... turns out to be silver laundering. That's what this maybe overly cerebral movie is about. Most of the protagonists try to give their criminal actions a whiff of legality by diverting the flow of money to Switzerland. It was an item then as it is now. Almost all the action is set in Switzerland, in the Italian speaking part south of the Alps, to be exact. And Switzerland is basically boring (i.e. no shots fired, no bloodletting, no moans or shrieks in the night). Nonetheless, the movie has some beautiful scenes. The way the freshly arrived crooks find out that their bank's offices is above a crummy pizza parlor, for example. Or the visit in the shady count's empty palazzo. The count takes one of the elegant, anorexic chairs and smashes it to the ground to stoke the fire. (Then he hands a chair to Caine. He should have smashed it likewise, to the dismay of the Count - what are you doing? - who meant that one to be sat on. Instead Caine just sits down - a missed opportunity!!) Also very good is the scene in the small private plane which runs into some serious turbulence, with the Count very scared an Caine not scared at all, taking the opportunity to clarify options and attitudes. Louis Jourdan, who plays the Count, is a mayor asset to the movie. Cibyll Shepherd is in one of her better parts here (interesting wardrobe and make-up) and also has a few really good scenes. Overall this movie is worth watching.
junk-monkey
I heard, many years ago, that Michael Caine used to pick his movie parts on the basis of the locations the films were to be shot in.'Ah!' He would think, 'I quite fancy a trip to Switzerland and Morocco. Haven't been there for a bit.' I guess that's why Caine took this part. I can think of no other reason* other than he fancied a trip to Morocco and the money was good. This long dull film is nowhere as funny or complicated as it thinks it is. The few plot twists are very obvious and not very twisty. The humour is leaden. (About halfway through I had to look at the DVD case sleeve to check whether I had been mistaken, but no, it was supposed to be a comedy.)Very avoidable.*Apart from the fact that his part called for him to roll around on a bed with a young, semi-naked Cybill Shepherd. Nice work if you can get it.
Michael
Complicated-to-the-point-of-derisory goings on; set in the less-than-fascinating world of the silver shares market, Swiss banks, crooked syndicate bosses and their schemes and so on. And on. And on. For at 110 minutes, this painfully protracted, alleged 'comedy' becomes unbearable as its visual jokes are repeated ad infinitum. The humour itself, although not exactly in the 'Road Trip' class of vulgarity, is unlikely to appeal to anyone over the age of 7. Everyone acts superfluously silly under the impression they are doing a good job, oblivious to their director, who is busy making some sort of jet-set Jacqueline Susannesque melodrama. Cybill has her work cut out as she frequently has to play the scenery as well as her designated role. The sort of film you may at least be able to laugh at, as opposed to with, provided you can drum up the enthusiasm to keep your eyes on the screen.
AD
