Journey from Bondage

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

ESCAPE TO NOWHERE

Directed by CLAUDE PINOTEAU Screenplay by CLAUDE PINOTEAU and JEAN-LOUP DABADIE

Sixteen years ago, a French physicist was kidnaped by the Russians and after a little reeducation, assigned to a project requiring his special expertise. Now, approaching middle age and in London for a scientific congress, he is abducted again--this time by the British, who are deadly curious about some information he possesses. They want the names of their own scientists who are leaking formulas to the Russians. If he will tell them, he will not be killed, suave Leo Genn informs the man. But if I talk, the Russians will kill me anyway, says a weary and disgusted Lino Ventura, who by this time has quite understandably had it with cold warriors of every persuasion.

Old-school gamesmen that they are, the British make him a sporting proposition--money, false papers, a gun and as much of a head start as they can manage if he cares to make a despairing run for his life. It is an offer he cannot refuse in the circumstances. Ventura's run--which includes trying to capture a Russian spy (who is also a well-known symphonic conductor), whom the fugitive needs as bait for a deal with his former masters--forms the substance of a movie that is at once deft and thoughtprovoking.

Remember that Ventura, who gives an appealingly understated performance, has a past that he would like to recapture too. This, indeed, is his weak point. The Russians are either a little ahead of him or just minutes behind as he seeks to re-establish his old connections with family and friends. Moreover, besides making his trackers' job easier, this attempt to knit up old threads increases his sense of loss and isolation.

The script sometimes strains coincidence and leaves some loose ends dangling. But as a study of a decent man twice victimized by megapolitics, Director Pinoteau's first feature rings with rueful truth. Escape to Nowhere is, in cinematic terms, aptly named. It represents a rare movie journey away from the Bondian glamorization of espionage toward that cold, perpetually drizzling landscape that Novelist John le Carre has mastered. Like him, Pinoteau sacrifices nothing in the way of suspense as he pursues his harried hero to a brilliant climactic confrontation with the enemy in the Swiss Alps. And he gains much in terms of audience identification with, and genuine concern for, a man who, like the rest of us, would cheerfully have allowed the heroic cup to pass him by, but grips it with enviable firmness when there is no other choice.

Richard Schickel

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