Our look back at the 1980s filmography of Sir Michael Caine lands on the lesser-known thriller, The Honorary Consul (aka Beyond The Limit in the US).
Michael Caine showed no sign of slowing down as he entered his third decade as a leading man. The 1980s would see him win his first Academy Award (Hannah and Her Sisters), tackle new genres such as horror (The Hand) and shark-based revenge movie (Jaws: The Revenge) while continuing to work with interesting new auteurs like Brian De Palma (Dressed To Kill) as well as old friends from classic Hollywood such as John Huston (Escape To Victory).
Film by film, I’ll be taking a look at Caine’s 1980s filmography to see what hidden gems I can unearth alongside the more familiar classics…
Spoilers for The Honorary Consul lay ahead…
A.K.A: This was, completely irrelevantly, titled Beyond The Limit when it was released in the US. I can’t think what in the film is beyond what limit. Perhaps Fortnum’s blood alcohol level? The English accent beyond Gere’s limit? As a title The Honorary Consul may not get the blood pumping but at least the film actually features an honorary consul!
Directed by: John Mackenzie (The Long Good Friday, The Fourth Protocol, Quicksand)
Tagline: First they betrayed him. Then they gambled with his life.
Other Featured Geezers: Richard Gere as Eduardo Plarr, Bob Hoskins as Colonel Perez, Elpidia Carrillo as Clara Fortnum, Joaquim de Almeida as Leon, Geoffrey Palmer as the British Ambassador.
What’s it all about, Alfie?: Based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Graham Greene, The Honorary Consul stars Caine as Charley Fortnum, the titular British honorary consul in the small town of Corrientes in Argentina. He’s an affable drunk, madly in love with his beautiful young local wife Clara (Elpidia Carrillo), whose life is complicated by the arrival of a handsome young doctor Eduardo Plarr (Richard Gere) who takes an immediate shine to Clara.
Plarr, who is half British and half Paraguayan (both things which Richard Gere demonstrably proves he is not whenever he speaks), had a dissident father who went missing many years ago, which ultimately leads to Plarr getting involved with some old schoolfriends, now militant activists, who offer information on his father’s whereabouts. A botched kidnapping of a US Ambassador later, which results in Fortnum mistakenly taken hostage, puts Plarr in a tricky situation where the life of the man whose wife he covets is in his hands.
Meanwhile good old Bob Hoskins pops up now and again to keep things interesting as the local moustachioed police chief Colonel Perez.
Caine-ness: Even though Caine is first billed, and playing the title character, he’s a supporting role in this with hotshot young actor Richard Gere in the lead. However, even whilst playing second fiddle, Caine still manages to be the standout performance.
He first appears on screen as Charley Fortnum, the “not even a real consul, an honorary consul”, four minutes in, dishevelled on the floor of a ransacked bar, after clearly having had way too much to drink. “It’s the measures you know, if they give you the wrong sort of glass you get confused,” he explains before being dragged up and escorted out; “I was quite comfy down there. I’ve sat on far worse things. Horses for example.”
This, when I’ve covered all of Caine’s filmography, will be my next feature; 10 Worst Things Sir Michael Caine Has Sat On. Surely, he sat on a Muppet; there must have been loads of the blighters just lying around on that set. Please let me know your favourite thing that Caine has sat on in the comments below.
Fortnum is strikingly similar to Professor Frank Bryant whom Caine had just played in Educating Rita. His line, “I feel a good deal more human after I’ve drunk about just over half a bottle” is very close to things said by Frank. He’s a harmless (apart from to his liver) and affable drunk with a charmingly self-deprecating sense of humour. He even has friendly chats with his kidnappers once they’re kind enough to give him a drink. As I mentioned in my review of Educating Rita, his role in that is one of my favourites and so it’s unsurprising that he’s also great in The Honorary Consul. He can play a charming drunk in his sleep.
Fortnum is an uncomplicated man who wears his heart on his sleeve. He says to Plarr that, “The Spanish are alright but they don’t understand the really important things” – which are “soft slippers” and “taking the dog for a walk”. Caine underplays the drunkenness in a matter-of-fact manner and gets some cracking lines; when Plarr, who is driving them, points out that he’s been directed into a one-way street, Fortnum casually responds, “Diplomatic immunity”.
Caine gets all the film’s laughs. My favourite moment is when Fortnum is waiting in the car that he’s driving for the US Ambassador as he goes to admire a waterfall. The Ambassador looks back to see Fortnum drinking from a hip flask. Realising that he’s been caught, he then stealthily lowers it and brings a Coke bottle up instead and gives a cheeky smile and a nod to the Ambassador (an attempt at gaslighting which sadly doesn’t fool the Ambassador who then insists on driving himself, leading to the mistaken identity kidnapping).
We don’t get much of the signature shouty and pointy Caine acting here, apart from one brief and justified scene after he finds out that Plarr has been sleeping with Clara and that her baby is likely not his. After that he chills out again, though. This, as a whole, is a very laidback Caine performance.
One final note on his turn here: seeing Caine with his blonde handlebar moustache, I realised that he could have easily played Hulk Hogan’s dapper estranged dad during peak Hulkamania, and I’m sad that never came to pass.
Caine-nections*: In his previous film, Educating Rita (1983), Caine also played a charming divorced alcoholic who falls for a younger woman. That film ended with his character, Frank, leaving the country on a sabbatical – so, if like me you are watching Caine’s films in chronological order, you can view The Honorary Consul as a direct sequel in the CCU (Caine Cinematic Universe) with Frank having changed his name, shaved his beard down to just a moustache, and got a job as an honorary consul abroad.
Caine would go on to work with director John Mackenzie another two times; The Fourth Protocol (1987) and Quicksand (2003).
This is the first time Caine worked with Bob Hoskins, but they would go on to appear together another five times; Mona Lisa (1986), Sweet Liberty (1986), Blue Ice (1992), Then There Were Giants (1994), Last Orders (2001).
*I’m only counting from Caine’s first starring role in Zulu onwards.
Best Non-Caine Actor: Whereas Caine was once the young, sweaty-backed leading man, the drenched shirt mantle has been passed on to Richard Gere (this is a very sweaty film all-round; no one’s clothes escape unscathed in the humid climate be they Hoskins or Carrillo). And with all due respect to Mr Gere, he’s completely miscast and a massive charisma vacuum in this.
He’s playing someone who’s half Paraguayan and half English. When he first spoke, I couldn’t work out what he was doing and thought perhaps he was just in some sort of pain. What he actually was attempting and failing to do was an English accent. The staid line delivery doesn’t suit Gere and becomes grating the more time you spend with him. He does even outright state, “I’m an Englishman” in the final third of the film – I’m assuming just to remind the audience. As an Englishman I felt personally victimised by this performance.
Although I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of Gere, I don’t remember actively disliking him in anything before, and I have definitely enjoyed a lot of his other performances. The Honorary Consul was released after the two films that made Gere an A-lister; American Gigolo (1980) and An Officer And A Gentleman (1982) and so perhaps he was buying into his newfound brooding handsome star persona a little too much.
Without Gere this film may not have been made, as it was his involvement after being given the script by producer Norma Heyman (the first British woman to produce an independent film entirely by herself, and mother of Harry Potter producer David Heyman) that helped get it into development, but he’s the biggest flaw. Plarr is an intentionally unlikeable and complex protagonist, so when asked if he believes in anything he responds, “No. I don’t think so”.
He’s meant to be emotionally numb; he admits to being jealous of Fortnum’s ability to unconditionally love Clara. He’s certainly not a conventional hero. The problem is that, unless the actor playing this role is inherently charismatic, it means the character becomes tedious to watch. I never liked Plarr but he also wasn’t compelling enough to dislike – he was just there. The most invested I was in Plarr was when he made a weird little noise after finding out his father was shot dead a year ago, because it seemed like he was letting out a bit of trapped wind. Speaking of which, there’s gratuitous Gere bum featured in the film’s steamy sex scenes if that’s your thing.
It doesn’t help Gere that Caine has such an easy-going effortless charm as Fortnum or that Hoskins oozes charisma in his small role. Hoskins’ accent, which is meant to be Argentinian, is very much not that but because Hoskins is always so damn good I didn’t care, I was just happy to have someone entertaining on screen. This was still very early in Hoskins’ film career, following on from his breakout role in Mackenzie’s previous movie The Long Good Friday (1980), and with his impressive moustache here preparing him for his iconic turn as Mario (Super).
The third lead is Clara played by Mexican actress Elpidia Carrillo who’s perhaps best known for her role in Predator (1987) and recently played the mother of the titular superhero in the underrated Blue Beetle (2023).
Clara is a thankless role, but Carrillo does her best. She’s meant to be a woman whom men fall instantly in love with but because beauty is such a subjective thing this quality is basically impossible to convey on screen. This was only her second English language feature, after The Border (1982), and apparently her English wasn’t initially great – which might explain some awkward line deliveries (when Plarr approaches her trying on sunglasses there’s a hint of Tommy Wiseau in the prolonged pause before she tonelessly says, “Oh it’s you Doctor” after already having looked at him for about 10 seconds). But she’s mostly an engaging screen presence and she definitely sold the enjoyment of going on an elevator for the first time (Plarr knows how to show a girl a good time).
One last actor to mention, it was nice to see human hound dog Geoffrey Palmer crop up briefly as the British Ambassador.
My Bleedin’ Thoughts: The thing that immediately jumped out when watching the opening credits was that the theme for the film is written by Paul McCartney and performed by John Williams! Men who have individually created some of the most iconic and beloved music of the 20th century. So surely with their combined power they must have created the best film theme ever?
No. It’s a noodling, uninspired South American influenced trifle with some half-arsed pan flutes chucked in for good measure. It’s not a bad piece of music (McCartney saved that for the theme to Spies Like Us (1985)) but it’s completely perfunctory. I was interested to know how this collaboration came about but struggled to find much information. Their contribution to the soundtrack isn’t even mentioned on the film’s Wikipedia page! But after a bit of a deep dive, I found out that although it is that Paul McCartney (he was friends with John Mackenzie, who directed the promo for his song Take It Away the previous year), it was a different John Williams. Not the American film composer but an Australian guitarist (I think – there could also be a third John Williams).
The other big name involved in the film is the screenwriter Christopher Hampton, who’s received the Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay three times: Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Atonement (2007), The Father (2020) and who wrote the stage play The Philanthropist. He did a fairly decent job of translating a hefty and challenging tome to screen but, to be fair to Gere’s acting, I think some problems with the character of Plarr are down to the writing.
Mackenzie is a steady hand on the directing tiller. The film as a whole is competently and efficiently put together with interesting gauzy brown tinged visuals throughout and some standout sequences such as the botched kidnapping. There’s also a brutal undercurrent, that’s not overplayed, where we see snippets of the political violence at the edge of the story including (in a genuinely shocking and unpleasant scene) men being submerged in bathtubs full of faeces. There is plenty of humour in the film, but it has a serious and sombre heart.
One thing that I was taken aback by was the lackadaisical handling of chicken safety featured early in the film. A van transporting crates of hens swerves to avoid Plarr’s car causing one of those crates to fall off and smash, leaving the chickens confused on the road flapping their wings about. They don’t appear too hurt, thankfully, and take being lobbed off a lorry in their stride (I’m sure Mackenzie provided proper stunt training for them), but nevertheless I did feel a bit sorry for them (but not sorry enough to stop me tucking into KFC for tea).
Trivia (Courtesy of IMDb): Both seem strangely hyper-focused on minor medical conditions and offer no corroborating evidence, so make of these what you will:
-Gere contracted a stomach ailment during principal photography, for which the regular medication for such a malady was ineffectual, requiring a substitute treatment. No clue from the anonymous IMDb contributor what this substitute treatment was.
-Caine was mistakenly given aspirin the day after he arrived in Veracruz for the production shoot. He’s allergic to aspirin and was therefore unable to work for the rest of the day. This is not a particularly fun or interesting bit of trivia, but Caine had to suffer on that day and therefore so should you.
Overall Thoughts: A decent, if unremarkable drama that suffers from a miscast Gere but is elevated somewhat by fun performances from Caine and Hoskins.
Rating: 3/5 Stunt Chickens
Where You Can Watch This: This is currently streaming on Prime Video, available to rent or purchase via Apple, or to own on DVD and Blu-ray.
Up Next: I’ll be starting with the edges and piecing together Caine’s role in the espionage thriller The Jigsaw Man.
