The Saint A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - PG-13 It's 1:57 Long A Review by The Dude on the Right

"The Saint" is the story of Simon Templar (Val Kilmer). When he was younger he was stuck in an orphanage where everyone was given the name of a Catholic saint. Simon, being the rebel he was destined to be, refused his name and broke out of the orphanage, but not without a life-changing incident. Now Simon is older, and instead of using his real name, he finds it cool to use the names of Catholic saints as his many aliases. Val get the job of playing as many as 12 different dudes and dudettes in this film, and I must say he does do a tremendous job of pulling off all of them. Anyway, as our story comes along, we see that Russia is cold, there's no heating oil, and the citizens are getting pissed at the President. Well, it seems the power-hungry billionaire, Ivan Tretiak (Rade Serbedzija) figures this is his opportunity to take his place as Russia's ruler because he has found out that this scientist dudette, Emma Russell (Elisabeth Shue), has found the secret to cold fusion, and well, Ivan wants it. Now, if you're a devious business guy and some dude just stole one of your super-guarded industry secrets, who are you gonna hire to steal Emma's formula? Well, yep, Ivan hires the same guy, our hero Simon, to steal Emma's little secret.

Now, in case you've been living in a cave and haven't seen a preview for "The Saint," you know that Simon falls for Emma, and now he is taught that money isn't always the only thing in life to live for. Yep, Emma is sweet, innocent, just trying to make the world a better place to live, and Simon gets suckered into her way of thinking, but not after he started the chain reaction of the shift of power in the old country. So, now, with his new found moral base, feelings, love, and the rest of that stuff, Simon, with Emma along, needs to make things right. And, well, they do, cold fusion is given to the world for free, and our hero and heroette live happily ever after.

Now you're mad at me for ruining the movie, aren't you? Well, sorry, this time I had to or else these next comments might not really make sense. "The Saint" is a good movie. It has lots of action, really cool gadgets (Simon's got the coolest pocket-knife I've ever seen and his combination cell-phone & hand-held computer is high on my list of things to buy for Christmas), is shot beautifully in Russia and England, and Elisabeth Shue plays the innocent scientist person great. My only problem is the fact that we get this nice and neat happy ending.

I read that originally the story had Emma getting killed but test audiences felt all sad that she ends up dead and they wanted something a little more cheerful. So, they re-shot the ending of the movie and the current version is what we got. Now, honestly, I don't know the validity of what I read, but for the future of the film series (a sequel seems to be destined for this one), her dying would have made more sense. See, of the great spy-guys in the movies, the one that always stands out for me is James Bond. He fell in love once, she died, and he got to continue carrying on his life being the bad-ass secret agent he was, always getting the ladies, but able to leave them in the morning and carry out his job without worrying about the "little woman" back home. The potential for Simon was similar, but instead of being on the side of a government, his was a life of saving the world for financial reward - cool enough for me! Emma, though, she took that away, and now it seems he's just going to be saving the world for the world's sake, which takes away the more exciting dark side he seemed to have in the beginning of the film.

Instead of being out for revenge, Simon now seems to be out for love; instead of being deviously cunning and mystical, Simon now seems like he'll be a happy-go-lucky spy guy; instead of being able to sleep with hundreds of women, Simon might (I doubt it though), but he'll have to feel guilty about it. I don't know, I liked the movie, and you probably will too, but for me the happy ending didn't work. They should have killed Emma off and let Simon be the bad-ass he started out to be.

All in all, it's a decent action film. Val is great in every character he plays, and Elisabeth, well, I've never seen her in a role I didn't like (and that includes "Adventures in Babysitting"), and as far as action/spy films, "The Saint" is a good one. I just think it could have been more, in the end, than just a "feel-good date-flick"

It's 3 stars out of 5, and that's it for this one! I'm The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!