The character of the Saint has existed on English television and in English big screen movies since the late 1950’s and it was made famous by Roger Moore. Everyone knows Roger Moore from his internationally successful roles as secret agent James Bond but not many outside of England remember him as The Saint. In the 1980’s Roger Moore wanted to produce a movie with the Saint character in it and he approached Pierce Brosnan about playing the lead role. That version of the movie never materialized but in 1997 there was finally a version of The Saint made and it featured one of the most popular male actors of the 1990’s Val Kilmer. Originally actors such as Mel Gibson, Ralph Fiennes, and Hugh Grant were offered the lead role of Simon Templar but in the end Val Kilmer got the part and many people say that it looked like Kilmer was made to play The Saint. The movie did very well in the international box office which was expected as the original Saint television shows were never broadcast in the United States so there was no built-in following for the character like their was in England. Either way the movie became a box office success and Roger Moore even got to play a small part in the movie although he never actually got to be seen on screen and he never got his producer’s credit.

The Saint is a movie about a man named Simon Templar, played by Val Kilmer, only his name isn’t really Simon Templar. Simon Templar is the patron saint of magic and he gave himself that name when he was in an orphanage. Templar is an international thief and important clients with very large savings accounts all over the world bid for his services. When the movie opens Templar is pulling off jobs and adding to his bank account which is getting closer to his retirement goal of $50 Million. He steals something from a Russian industrialist and in return the industrialist offers Templar a job. A professor in England named Emma Russell, played by Elisabeth Shue, has created a formula for cold fusion. Cold fusion is the energy break through that could allow the industrialist Ivan Tretiak, played by Rade Serbedzija, to control the energy supply in Russia and allow him to blackmail the Russian government for billions of dollars. Tretiak hires the Saint to steal the formula. Templar is called the Saint because when he assumes a new identity for each job he always takes the name of a saint as his cover. That is why they call him The Saint. When the Saint gets to England he finds himself falling in love with Dr. Russell and he starts to have second thoughts about completing the job. Just as he decides to go ahead and finish the job the Russian mafia try to kill Dr. Russell. It is at that point that the Saint decides he will save Dr. Russell and turn on the Russian mafia of which Tretiak is a member.

The movie is well written and well acted and keeps many of the same characteristics of the original Saint movies and television shows. It is an exciting movie and Val Kilmer plays his part to perfection. It seems kind of odd that in a movie that was so successful, and where Kilmer received critical praise for his work, that he would eventually wind up being nominated for a Razzie Award in 1998 as the worst actor of 1997. Such is the up and down nature of Hollywood.