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Title: A Missed Op
Review: Not a true biopic and not a real adaptation, just a good-looking drag. The picture's like Frederick Forest's take on the lead character. It looks remarkably authentic, but doesn't hold the interest for long. (Do scenes of writers at work ever really succeed on screen?) While the picture opens with Chandler's lauding Hammett's groundbreaking work, all we see here are cliches in action. We never get a sense of what he was rendering at the time that was different than what others were doing or noticeably realistic. We end up with scenes we've seen a hundred times before and some that explicitly foreshadow better bits in the Falcon. Dean Tavoularis' art direction looks terrific though, and there's some good John Barry scoring.
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