My review was written in July 1991 after watching the movie on RCA/Columbia video cassette.
Michael Winner's attempt at a rollicking caper comedy falls flat in "Bullseye!". Film opened in London last November but is just a direct-to-video title with big name stars for domestic consumption.
Inspiration was evidently the smash "A Fish Called Wanda", whose star and creator John Cleese makes a cameo here. Unfortunately that film was probably a fluke since the caper format seems tired indeed this time. It' a pity, since Winner made one of the best '60s pics in the genre, "The Jokers".
Here, Michael Caine and Roger Moore front for a preposterous story line. Both are criminals, whose exact look-alikes happen to be government scientists who've devised a nuclear fusion energy process that promises cheap electrical power.
With their old partner Sally Kirkland as instigator they set about to steal the corrupt scientists' cache of diamonds (taken as bribes from foreign powers) from a safety deposit box..
This feat accomplished, the second half of the film chases around Scotland as the criminals are supposedly working for UK and USA government agencies to get the scientists' formula and thwart the baddies' attempt to sell it to the enemy.
Winner delivers his usual sprightly pace, but the frequent sight gags and dumb jokes aren't funny. Both Caine and Moore strain for laughs, the former made up like W. C. Fields with a false nose and latter bugging his eyes out in frequent astonishment. Moore's real-life daughter, pouty Deborah Barrymore, is cast as an unlikely 22-year-old CIA agent.
Kirkland, who wears gaudy outfits for no reason in the later reels like she did in "Cold Feet", is okay in a strictly functional role. In addition to Cleese, Jenny Seagrove and Patsy Kensit make pointless cameos.
Shot in 1989, pic has dated rapidly, especially a final gag involving a lookalike of then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher. John Du Prez, who scored "A Fish Called Wanda", punches up the film with catchy music, but his jaunty main theme is way too close to John Dankworth's classic "Morgan!".
