As one of my missions is to impart enthusiasms I very rarely write about a bad film or one I don't like. Just occasionally however I will take a scalpel (the weapon used in "In His Hands") to demolish one that has made me really angry. Generally I avoid remakes like the plague particularly if the originals are wonderful. Curiosity once got the better of me and I sampled the more recent version of "Cry the Beloved Country" originally so sensitively and beautifully directed by Zoltan Korda in the late 'forties. What a disaster! Never again! After that you can keep your second time round "Brief Encounters", "Psychos" and "Manchurian Candidates". My anger at "In His Hands" is that it does not acknowledge it is a remake so that I was trapped halfway through with the realisation that I had been conned into watching a regurgitated version of Chabrol's masterly "Le Boucher" which, as a psychological thriller, in my opinion, eclipsed everything Hitchcock ever made. For "Tremolat" read "Lille", for "schoolmistress" read "insurance agent", for "butcher" read "vet" and there you have it, the same type of serial killings gradually creeping from the background to the foreground of the plot, the same motivation, the same relationship between the two central characters, the same ending. Whatever possessed the creators of this film to disguise this plagiarised abortion of a masterpiece and pass it off as something new beggars belief. I suppose that, in itself and were it not for the original, "In His Hands" is a passable thriller. However for those of us who adore "Le Boucher" this health warning is essential.
Review of In His Hands
