christopher-underwood Review of 008: Operation Exterminate

008: Operation Exterminate (1965)

I thought maybe there would be a complete subversion of the genre

[4/10 · 6 February 2014]

I'm not sure why I find it so difficult to enjoy the spy film genre. Whether legitimate or spoof seems to make no difference. There is something about the genre that attracts the infantile perhaps, certainly there is a fetish for playthings, gadgets (and women!) where even in the most serious maybe things are not taken too seriously. With this the first of Umberto Lenzi's spy films I thought maybe there would be a complete subversion of the genre (certainly my box cover suggests so) more a spaghetti spy story with little reverence for the old originals. But no this treads a fairly well worn path (except for the female lead) and takes itself pretty seriously at first. Gradually one feel that Lenzi throws in the towel because it does become slightly amusing and maybe more of a spoof but even so there is no hard edge, all the fights are crap, most of the dialogue laughable (not that laughable) and the sex scenes brought up short. There is some fine location shooting particularly on the streets of Cairo and later in the alps but not enough to make this very watchable.