Whoopi Goldberg first made her name as a comedienne, so it is rather surprising that her first major cinema role was in the almost reverentially serious 'The Color Purple'. 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' was her first screen comedy, but it is unfortunate that she chose such a second-rate vehicle for her talents.
Whoopi plays Terry Dolittle, a dealer in a New York bank. One day she gets a mysterious message on her computer screen. This turns out to come from a British secret agent code-named 'Jumpin' Jack Flash'. Jack is marooned somewhere in Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain and his life is in danger. He asks Terry to get a message to his contacts in the British consulate so that they can take steps to extricate him from his plight. (It is never explained exactly where Jack is, or what the danger is with which he is threatened, or what the consulate staff can do to save him). Terry does so, but discovers that one of the consular officials is a KGB agent and that her own life is in danger.
The film is billed as a 'comedy-thriller', and like a number of films in this and other hybrid genres, it falls between two stools. It lacks the wit of a pure comedy or the excitement of a pure thriller. It must be the only spy thriller in which we do not see the spy except for a very brief appearance at the end. (A waste of that fine actor Jonathan Pryce). Jack is simply a mysterious presence at the other end of a computer line; the film concentrates exclusively on Terry's efforts. As a result, we never believe completely in her efforts to save him; had the film shown us more of Jack's situation it might have generated more tension. John Woods plays the villain as the stereotyped languid, drawling, upper-class Englishman (a common category of villain in films of the eighties and nineties), but never makes him seem very menacing. As for the comic element, there are occasionally some amusing scenes, particularly those involving Terry's patronising, sexist boss, but overall the film is largely free of genuine wit. I was surprised at the large amount of bad language in a film which does not have an explicitly 'adult' theme; I am not personally offended by this sort of language, but I felt that it could have the potential effect of alienating family audiences. Not, in all, a film worth watching. A 'gas, gas, gas'? More like trash, trash, trash. 4/10
Whoopi plays Terry Dolittle, a dealer in a New York bank. One day she gets a mysterious message on her computer screen. This turns out to come from a British secret agent code-named 'Jumpin' Jack Flash'. Jack is marooned somewhere in Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain and his life is in danger. He asks Terry to get a message to his contacts in the British consulate so that they can take steps to extricate him from his plight. (It is never explained exactly where Jack is, or what the danger is with which he is threatened, or what the consulate staff can do to save him). Terry does so, but discovers that one of the consular officials is a KGB agent and that her own life is in danger.
The film is billed as a 'comedy-thriller', and like a number of films in this and other hybrid genres, it falls between two stools. It lacks the wit of a pure comedy or the excitement of a pure thriller. It must be the only spy thriller in which we do not see the spy except for a very brief appearance at the end. (A waste of that fine actor Jonathan Pryce). Jack is simply a mysterious presence at the other end of a computer line; the film concentrates exclusively on Terry's efforts. As a result, we never believe completely in her efforts to save him; had the film shown us more of Jack's situation it might have generated more tension. John Woods plays the villain as the stereotyped languid, drawling, upper-class Englishman (a common category of villain in films of the eighties and nineties), but never makes him seem very menacing. As for the comic element, there are occasionally some amusing scenes, particularly those involving Terry's patronising, sexist boss, but overall the film is largely free of genuine wit. I was surprised at the large amount of bad language in a film which does not have an explicitly 'adult' theme; I am not personally offended by this sort of language, but I felt that it could have the potential effect of alienating family audiences. Not, in all, a film worth watching. A 'gas, gas, gas'? More like trash, trash, trash. 4/10