THE WRECKING CREW (1968)
Reviewed By Jerry Saravia
The Wrenchingly Awful Crew. This last Matt Helm entry is such a stilted, forced, bland and stupendously awful film that I am surprised it was even released in theatres. Dean Martin is the superspy but he seems so indifferent to the chaos of the story (something to do with the movement of gold bars) that, well, you kinda wish Dino would've passed on this and sang more songs with the Rat Pack at the Stardust.
The whole movie is meant to be a joke, a parody of James Bond, if only the cast was in on the joke. The late Sharon Tate is one of many women that bed Matt Helm, though she seems uncomfortable playing a supposed klutz of a spy. Nigel Green is the bad guy, though he seems almost as indifferent as everyone else in the movie. The fight scenes are idiotic (sorry Mr. Bruce Lee but the staging is flat), the sophisticated weapons include nothing more than a black sock that is hurled at Green's minions, a film camera that emits green fog (!), a briefcase that contains the parts to assemble a helicopter, and so on. To top it off, some of Dino's songs are heard at the oddest moments, ostensibly more of an intrusion than a helping hand to advance the nonexistent plot.
One curious note: I know this movie is a joke but I am curious about Green's sophisticated surveillance. He is in a control room in his house where he has a camera in every part of his estate, including areas where cameras couldn't possibly exist. For example, he keeps an eye on a train that contains the gold and can view it through his various monitors from many different angles, including several aerial shots, medium shots on the sides of the trains, etc. How does he get the aerial shots if he has no helicopters keeping track of the train? How come the boxcars don't seem to have any cameras attached to them? That's about the only humorous gag I can think of for this sad piece of horse dung known as "The Wrecking Crew."
