bkoganbing This one kind of lost me a bit. Still I like the way the ending came out. The giant conspiracy that 4 billion dollars was supposed to fuel does not come off in the end. I will say the conspirators aimed high.40 years ago in the last days of World War II three German generals managed to siphon off a lot of Third Reich loot and stash it in some Swiss banks. With the interest it's now 4 billion dollars. What to do with that kind of bread?That's what Michael Caine is wondering, he is one of the three sons of a German general. He and his mother Lilli Palmer fled Germany just before World War II started and he's been brought up American, though he's the most cockney sounding American I ever heard. When Michel Lonsdale Swiss banker brings him the news, it kind of hits him unexpectedly. What a lottery prize that even if we have to share it.Share it he does with Anthony Andrews, German born and British raised with his sister Victoria Tennant and Mario Adorf who is a famous symphony conductor.Someone's trying to kill Caine, but who and why? That is the complex possibly too complex puzzle of The Holcroft Covenant. The action is fast, but it seems at cross purposes with the story. It's a strain to figure out the who and why with the bullets flying fast and furious. In fact most of the cast dies.Too much needless strain.

ma-cortes The movie's opening title card read "Berlin 1945" , these opening scenes, set during the end of World War II, were shot in black-and-white, unlike the rest of the movie which was filmed in color ; the black-and-white opener reflected newsreels of the era . The picture is set approximately exactly forty years after the end of the Second World War. It's second after the film's opener read "New York 1985". There , the son named Noel Holcroft (Michael Caine replaced James Caan ; Caan walked off the production the day before filming started) of a German General becomes part of a mysterious conspiracy to gain hidden Nazi funds . As the amount of secret money in Noel Holcroft's inheritance was US $4 billion . Under the terms of the covenant Noel have to locate the sons (Anthony Andrews , Victoria Tennat , Mario Adorf) of his father's two associates so they can jointly activate their fathers' account. As the movie's MacGuffin was a World War II era large heavy metal case, embossed with Nazi insignia, and containing the The Holcroft Covenant . Noel efforts attempting to release the hidden fund that his father humanly set up to relieve the future sufferings of Holocausto survivors . This exciting picture packs noisy action , confuse intrigue , thrills , plot twists and enjoyable outdoors from London , Zurich, Berlin , N.Y . among others ; being appropriately photographed by Gerry Fisher . Interesting and nail-biting screenplay written by the notorious George Axelrod and Edward Anhalt ; however resulting to be confusing and slow-moving . The film was made and released about seven years after its source novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum had been first published in 1978. This is second ever feature film adaptation of a Robert Ludlum novel and the third Ludlum adaption overall for any filmed production, as Clave: omega had debuted in theaters in 1983 whilst Rhinemann exchange (1977) had been made for television in 1977. The picture was the second of three 1980s features based on Ludlum novels, the decade ended with a tele-movie titled The Bourne Identity . This was one of a number of action-thrillers of the 1980s which featured a neo-Nazi story twist element ; others included Alistair MacLean's Bear Island (1979) and River of death (1989). The cast is frankly excellent such as Michael Caine as Holcroft , and other heirs as Anthony Andrews playing Jonathan Tennyson and Victoria Tennant as his sister Helden Tennyson . Agreeable as well as experimented support cast such as the veteran as Lilli Palmer as Althene Holcroft , Mario Adorf as Erich Kessler and Bernard Hepton as Commander Leighton . Furthermore , second and final of two movies that actor Richard Münch made with director John Frankenheimer , as the first film had been The Train (1964) . And first of three movies that actor Michael Lonsdale made with director John Frankenheimer , the later films were Ronin (1998) and Riviera (1987). Holcroft Covenant was middlingly directed by John Frankenheimer . At the beginning he worked for TV and turned to the cinema industry with The Young Stranger (1957) . Disappointed his with first feature film experience he came back to his successful television career directing a total of 152 live television shows in the 50s . He took another opportunity to change to the big screen , collaborating with Burt Lancaster in The Young Savages (1961) and Birdman of Alcatraz (62) ending up becoming a successful director well-known by his skills with actors and expressing on movies his views on important social deeds and philosophical events and film-making some classics as ¨The Manchurian candidate¨, ¨Seven days of May¨ and ¨The Train¨ and , in addition , ¨Grand Prix¨ including great car races . Holcroft covenant rating : Mediocre film and sometime embarrassing .

AaronCapenBanner Based on Robert Ludlum's novel, this film features Michael Caine as Noel Holcroft, an architect living in New York who is contacted by a Swiss banker and told that his late father(who had been a financial adviser to Hitler, but diverted funds to a Swiss Bank) has made him the executor of a vast trust worth over 4 billion dollars to be used to make reparations to Holocaust survivors. Noel accepts the position, but then finds himself the target of assassins who want that fortune for a different purpose altogether...a fourth Reich, and return of Nazi power.Intriguing and compelling thriller may be far-fetched at times, but is well acted by all, and features good direction by John Frankenheimer, who creates a whirlwind feel to this international conspiracy tale.

fedor8 Another absurd thriller from Frankenheimer; almost a specialty of his, creating convoluted political thrillers that make little sense. The script's blatant disregard for logic must have made him fall in love with it immediately.The other three Nazi kids had known about the covenant since their childhood, and yet Caine somehow didn't have a clue. This is already the first glaring logic problem in THC. It is very difficult to believe that Palmer (Caine's mother) only found out about it when he did. That's almost impossible, given that practically everyone else knew. In fact, her behaviour suggests that she almost certainly knew. But that begs the next question: why the hell would she not tell Caine about it (much) earlier? If for no other reason than to warn him about it, giving him sufficient time to prepare for ensuing hoopla – and of course to increase his chances of survival.Are we to believe that Palmer was part of the conspiracy to kill her own son, a plan that had been abandoned by the anti-Nazi organization "Wolfsschanze" after the first attempt at Caine's life at the dock? It doesn't quite make sense. Palmer isn't portrayed as a zealous fanatic, ready to sacrifice her son's life at the drop of a hat, on some hunch (not even a certainty) that he might enable neo-Nazis to get that money. In fact, even if she WERE a zealot ready to allow his murder, then she would have had all the reasons in the world to tell him about the covenant years earlier, so that she could groom him in a proper way to make him avoid making errors that might lead to disaster, and to avoid having to assassinate him.This is not the only glaring idiocy in the relatively convoluted plot. It is hard for me to imagine that "Wolfsschanze", an apparently very serious and well-organized secret group, would be so utterly daft as to not suspect Tennant right after finding out that her brother had murdered their leader and Palmer. Did they really think that he could have been hiding his Nazi sympathies from his own sister for decades on end? Even Caine not ever suspecting her made little sense, except if we believed that he was a totally naïve imbecile.The writer tried to cover up for Caine's lack of suspicion by making him fall in love with Tennant, but that's a fairly dubious touch, too. After all, Caine and Tennant had only just met 3-4 days earlier, yet already he's "in lurve"? I could understand if an uneducated, low-IQ, wide-eyed, gullible 20 year-old fell head-over-heals so quickly and easily - but a successful, intelligent architect in his mid-40s, and surrounded with such sudden pressures and fears? Come on. Any half-way intelligent man would have grown suspicious after Tennant had professed her love for him – on the 2nd day since they'd met! Very sudden and highly suspicious; at this point I knew she was out to get him. Add to that all those billions waiting in the bank, and corpses piling up: what man would possibly not at least suspect her of some ulterior agenda. Perhaps not illogical, like the whole Lili Palmer business, but certainly quite far-fetched.The kidnapping was very obviously staged. I don't know whom the director was hoping to fool with that. In fact, Tennant's fake abduction simply made me more certain that she and her brother were the "baddies".The great irony is that Tennant is such a bad actress, a typical silver-spoon-in-mouth hand-her-a-movie-career-on-a-plate nepotist, hence for her to be playing a character that is so successfully deceptive (fooling everyone) is almost comical. She isn't as wooden as she normally is in her other movies, but definitely a semi-amateur. The less said about Mario Adorf being miscast as a CLASSIC ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR, the better. The man looks like a butcher, rugby player, or Welsh miner. They might as well have cast Ernest Borgnine or Lino Ventura for the role.The leader of "Wolfsschanze" using that rather silly "Nazi-test" on Caine: that was pretty shaky too. Ditto the fact that Tennant's brother would be so stupid as to leave the scene of a double-homicide without erasing or taking away the tapes that show him as the killer. All these years of planning, scheming, and everything else – and yet he makes this strictly amateurish error: far-fetched, dumb even.The premise that 4 and a half billion dollars could be used to destabilize the world with terrorism isn't far-fetched. However, the idea that this money could be used to destabilize the world to such an extreme extent that "a new strong leader" would then emerge – a Nazi at that – and take over the reigns, that is certainly foolish thinking, nothing that should have anyone too worried. If only it were that easy. Vast amounts of money can perhaps make Oscar winners out of crap like "Milk", but certainly not produce magic. Besides, how the hell did the trio of covenant creators know for sure that any of their offspring would follow the same political path as they did? In spite of all the absurd goings-on and very loose logic, THC is a fun movie, interesting from start to finish. Casting Caine in the lead certainly helped.