I’ve got this brilliant Hollywood scenario in my head where everyone is laughing their heads off at the story being told. So what’s the story? Michael Caine plays a rich author who’s been taken to the cleaners by two ex-wives and a palimony suit, hates women so much he wants to move to a country where they’re flogged, and then falls in love.
At a charity benefit, robbers break in, everybody has to strip while they make off with the jewelry, and Caine and Sally Field are tied together naked. Being forced into such close proximity with her, Caine finds his interest in Field growing by leaps and bounds, etc., after they’re freed he pursues her and they fall in love. But he doesn’t let on that he’s a wealthy writer because he wants to be certain she loves him for himself rather than for his money.
Great idea for a movie? You bet. I’d make it in a second. Cannon Films did too. But do you suppose anybody asked Jerry Belson (the writer/director) what happened then? SURRENDER is an amazing case of a movie that can do no wrong for its first half and precious little right thereafter, as soon as the story hooks up with itself, it’s dead. The thing has no place to go, Belson’s contrivances for keeping it going are desperate.
The chemistry really clicks, of course; that’s all good fun. Michael Caine has developed into one of the most surefooted and unfailingly entertaining leading men in present-day Hollywood movies, Sally Field is delightful as Daisy Morgan who works all day at an art factory producing “genuine oils” on an assembly line but never gets around to working on her own paintings until finally she meets Caine just about ready to give up on her rich boring boyfriend (Steven Guttenberg).
The early scenes of their courtship are charming. Caine is very good at playing shy and uncertain, which he can manage even while proposing sex almost as soon as he walks into Field’s house for the first time. “I make it a policy never to have sex before the first date,” she explains.
Caine goes through an interior struggle between his romantic inclinations and his fears of being taken again, this time by Fields; meanwhile his lawyer (Peter Boyle) looks on sagaciously, foreseeing the day when all Michael’s money will be going straight from the bank to former wives through the mail. But finally trust wins out over finance; they do love each other after all.
And that’s about where it dies. Instead of continuing to develop their relationship (which would not have been easy in any event), Belson starts throwing new story elements at us left and right. Reno jackpots involving prenuptial agreements, terrorist kidnappings followed quickly by personality transformations (but how does she know?), fatal misunderstandings etc.
The movie gets caught up in its plot gimmicks and loses track of its simple human feelings. One of them, anyway the one between Caine and Field is sacrificed somewhere along the line, I’m afraid.
It’s a real shame because there are so many good things in SURRENDER’S first part (including one big BIG laugh) that you figure you’re home free and then it loses confidence in itself or something. The two halves end up canceling each other out. When I think about that imaginary Hollywood story conference, what really scares me is that maybe everybody liked the second half better than the first which would explain why so many movies these days always have to be happening no matter what and characters get lost in the confusion.
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