Popular reviews

• 

  Review by Mos Co ★★

  The plot is heavy whacky in this one. Not sure I knew what was going on half the time though.

• 

  Review by josh lewis ★★★ 1

  early ken russell spy thriller that looks very nice but gets lost tonally somewhere between serious, le carré political critique and the more cartoon elements of bond in a way that's a bit incoherent. russell clearly has a lot of fun getting into the mania of cold war hysteria (all the scenes with the red scare texas oil baron are hilarious) but he especially comes alive on screen when he gets to shoot michael caine being obscenely down bad for françoise dorléac.

• 

  Review by Rick Burin ★★½ 3

  I sat in on a Newsnight interview with Michael Caine the other day, as he was doing a show at the concert venue where I work.

  One of the fascinating things he talked about - which didn't make the edit - was this ludicrous idea that he just plays himself on screen. Rather, he said, he's a bit like Fred Astaire: "You see Gene Kelly running up the walls and you say, 'I couldn't do that', but then you watch Fred Astaire, and he makes it look so easy - and you think, 'I could do that'. Trust me, you couldn't. And that's the same with my acting. 'I could do that.' Trust me, you couldn't."

  That's true of his…

• 

  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★★ 2

  Twenty years ago today, on 22nd December 1999, BBC1 broadcast this film (well, technically you could say that it was actually twenty years ago tomorrow, cos it was on at half past midnight) and I instantly fell in love with it. I was twenty then, I am forty now and I don't care what you say, I still love this movie and I always will love it. It's so incredibly, enjoyably 1960s. It's the Blow-Up of spy movies and I kind of want to live in this film.

  Back in '99 I was already a huge fan of Michael Caine and his spy character Harry Palmer, thanks to The Ipcress File and the first sequel, Funeral in Berlin. But it…

• 

  Review by mrbalihai ★★½ 7

  Billion Dollar Brain doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up.

  A mostly disappointing end to the original Harry Palmer trilogy that's far too over-the-top and self-consciously "wacky" to make a decent follow-up to Funeral in Berlin, or The Ipcress File, but also lacking in sufficient quantities of Ken Russell's patented pixie dust of delirious perversion and frantically melodramatic scenery-chewing to earn a place among his more outré offerings. The result is an uneven and poorly-paced series of set pieces that lurch between these opposite extremes without any apparent rhyme or reason, resulting in an unsatisfying mixture of downbeat, sardonic humor that's reminiscent of the first two films, and an attempt at Dr. Strangeloveian satire that fosters…

• 

  Review by Sophie Farrell ★★★★½

  This review may contain spoilers!

  Billion Dollar Brain was the third film in the original run of the Harry Palmer series, before a further two sequels followed in the 1990s. The Harry Palmer films were produced at the height of the 60s spy craze, a result of the enormous success of the James Bond series. The Ipcress File and Funeral Berlin are often considered to be the stronger entries in the series, with the former being rated as one of the best British films of the 20th century. Billion Dollar Brain, on the other hand, is considered to be the weakest of the three. I have always felt that Billion Dollar Brain was a sadly overlooked and underrated film. It…

• 

  Review by Gregory Kent ★★★★

  1967 Ranked
  Physically Owned Films

  I'm quite surprised the odd mixture of John Le Carre serious style espionage and goofy Bond worked so well for me in this. I'm not sure if my expectations were low with it being the third in the series, or if Russell's direction balanced it well, but either way I had a good time. The direction, particularly anything in the snow was captivating, the over the top music and performances were enjoyable, and the film moved along at a good enough pace to keep you interested while confused in all the double crosses. This is far from perfect, there's not enough for Palmer to do in it, he often seems like a passive participant, and the goofiness occasionally borders on puerility, but Billion Dollar Brain is pretty delightful.

• 

  Review by GordoFlower ★★

  Did not know this was the third in a series, and only watched it because it was directed by Ken Russell. And while it doesn't seem like you need previous knowledge of the Harry Palmer character, the story is told in such a convoluted manner that you won't keep up anyway. Or simply won't care to follow it.

  I did kind of enjoy it as a spoof of spy movies. Especially when they get to the USA, those scenes were the funniest.

• 

  Review by Sophie Farrell ★★★★ 2

  Billion Dollar Brain is the third film of the original run of Harry Palmer films produced at the height of the 60's spy film craze. Having only seen the previous film in series, Funeral in Berlin which I quite enjoyed, I expected a similar sort of experience from Billion Dollar Brain. How wrong was I? Billion Dollar Brain is 60's kitsch and I love it. The Harry Palmer films have always been promoted as anti-James Bond but Billion Dollar Brian feels very Bond-esque. I enjoyed every minute of this film!

  The film follows Harry Palmer, who has left MI5 to work as a private investigator. He is told by a mechanical voice over a telephone to take a package to…

• 

  Review by Johnny81 ★★★

  Drifting even further from the tone of the first two films, this sees Palmer working as a double agent for MI5 as he works with an old friend to deliver some virus laden eggs and take orders from super computer the "Brain" that dispenses orders to agents around the world. Controlled by Texan oil tycoon general Midwinter, he intends to start a rebellion in Latvia that will start the fall of communism.
  There is a hell of a lot more going on than the synopsis above but is probably best to just leave it at that and let you try and keep up if you decide to watch it.
  With the swinging 60s in full err swing, Ken Russell in…

• 

  Review by Evan “Kaizō Haya-shill” Pincus ★★★½

  Operation Gideon movie starring Ed Begley as the raving embodiment of neo-fascist anti-communist American intervention. Much, much more Ken Russell in DNA than it seems to get credit for.

• 

  Review by Richmond_Hill ★★★½

  Ken does Len; Ken does Nev(sky). Deighton reimagined via bored nods to Eisenstein. 

  Meanwhile early signs of Russell smuggling in breasts, bras and Mahler LPs into the first few minutes and thereafter pepping things up in a rococo fashion with paintings of bosoms whenever his interest in thriller mechanics wanes.

  There’s a little more of the mad masestro in his second feature than you might think with choreographed camera movements, good location choices and some memorable visual setups, although he’s not one of life’s natural thriller directors preferring the purity of the punchy image to the intricacies of spy sagas.

  It actually hangs together better than I remembered - both from the daft density of Deighton’s plotting and the saucy swerves of Russell’s caprices - and remains a visually assured addition to the cluttered landscape of 1960s filmed spy espionage and the diffuse warnings that litter popular culture.