The Saint (1997) on Netflix
PG-1319971h 56mActionAdventureRomance
Simon Templar is a thief who uses the aliases of Catholic saints. Russian oil tycoon Ivan Tretiak hires him to steal a cold fusion formula from Emma Russell, an Oxford electrochemist.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.2/1078,883 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes30%
Trailer
Plot summary
At the Saint Ignatius Orphanage, a rebellious boy rejects the name the priests gave him and takes the name Simon Templar for himself. As an adult he is a thief called The Saint, who adopts the names of Catholic saints for his jobs, and he robs the Russian oil company of the oligarch Ivan Tretiak. Tretiak then hires him to steal a cold fusion formula from Emma Russell, an American electrochemist at Oxford, to control the energy market during Russia's oil shortage. Simon approaches her as a Boer traveler named Thomas More. His feelings for her leave him torn between finishing the job and giving it up.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Saint (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Ralph Fiennes, coming off Schindler's List and Quiz Show, was offered $1 million to play Simon Templar but turned it down, later telling Premiere magazine the script's fast cars and Swiss bank heists felt like nothing he hadn't already seen.
- Before Val Kilmer took the part, Hugh Grant, Kenneth Branagh, Mel Gibson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christian Slater, George Clooney, Kevin Costner, Johnny Depp and Daniel Day-Lewis all turned down the role of Simon Templar; Kilmer signed on only after also declining to reprise Bruce Wayne in Batman & Robin, and the script was then rewritten to fit him.
SPOILER
In the original script, Emma Russell dies in Simon's arms after Ilya Tretiak stabs her in the leg with his cane, and the finale built to Simon avenging her death rather than ending on the romance shown in the finished film.- The producers scrapped that fatal ending and a planned final showdown between Simon and Ilya on a burning chandelier, replacing it with new footage of the villains' arrest and a freshly filmed epilogue at Oxford; the abandoned footage still turns up prominently in the film's trailer.
- Val Kilmer kept pushing to give his Saint more elaborate disguises, even though Paramount wanted to hold that gimmick back for its own Mission: Impossible franchise; the original 1930s Charteris character had only used crude disguises by comparison.
- The film's Kremlin tunnel scene, supposedly set beneath Moscow, was actually shot in the real tunnels of Fort Amherst in England.
