"The Honorary Consul", based on a novel by Graham Greene, is set in and around the Argentine city of Corrientes, in the far north of the country on the border with Paraguay, but in fact the film was actually shot in Mexico. Doubtless in 1983, only a year after the Falklands War, British film crews would not have been welcome in Argentina.

The main character is Eduardo Plarr, a half-English, half-Paraguayan doctor, who is in exile from Paraguay where his father is being held prisoner because of his opposition to the Stroessner regime. Plarr is approached by Leon, an old friend from Paraguay. Leon, a former priest, is now a member of a guerrilla group fighting against the Paraguayan government, and asks for Plarr's assistance in a plot to kidnap the American Ambassador and to use him as a hostage to secure the release of political prisoners. Although Plarr has tried to keep out of politics since arriving in Argentina, he agrees to assist the group in return for a promise that his father will be one of the prisoners whose release they will demand.

Unfortunately, the incompetent guerrillas mistakenly kidnap the British Consul Charley Fortnum, whom they have confused with the Ambassador. This puts Plarr in a difficult position as Fortnum has always regarded him as a friend. Their friendship, however, has not prevented Plarr from conducting an affair with Fortnum's Argentine wife Clara. Plarr travels to Buenos Aires to ask the British Ambassador to assist, but without success. Fortnum, a heavy drinker, is no good at his job, and has displeased the British authorities by his marriage to Clara, whom they do not regard as a suitable wife for a British diplomat. (She is a former prostitute). The British government, therefore, are not prepared to intercede with the Paraguayan regime on his behalf.

Richard Gere was not the most obvious choice to play a doctor of mixed British and Paraguayan heritage, but the producers evidently wanted a big-name American star to appeal to the American market. He is not as bad as some of his detractors on this board make out, but he struck me as making his character too laid-back. This is perhaps appropriate in the early scenes- although he has never been to Britain, Plarr likes to stress on his British heritage and to see himself as a calm, solid, unemotional Englishman. In the later scenes, however, where Plarr becomes more emotionally involved, Gere did not seem really convincing.

The real star of the film is Michael Caine, an actor whose work can be uneven but who here is at his best, which means that he is very good indeed. Fortnum, an alcoholic and a professional failure, may be, as the British Ambassador sarcastically describes him, "pitiably small beer", yet Caine manages to make him someone we can care about. Fortnum has married a beautiful younger woman, whom he loves deeply, but faces the awful prospect of losing her to a younger, better-looking friend who does not really love her. To make matters worse he is kidnapped and held hostage by a gang of bungling but nevertheless lethal terrorists, and yet somehow he manages to keep an impressive dignity throughout.

Two other good performances come from the lovely Mexican actress Elpidia Carrillo, whom I have not seen in any other film, as Clara, and Bob Hoskins as the local police chief, Colonel Perez. Hoskins, best known in Britain for playing Cockneys, might again not seem the most natural choice to play a Latin American character, but here he is excellent. Perez is a man in a difficult position; he believes in upholding the law, but he also believes in doing so with humanity and fairness, a task which is becoming difficult given the deteriorating political situation. Greene's novel was written in 1973, before the coup of 1976 which brought the military junta to power, when Argentina was still nominally a democracy, but in practice retained many authoritarian features.

I also liked the restrained, sombre photography, appropriate for a film dealing with serious topics and which has a plot which is in many ways tragic. I am always surprised that this film, based on the work of one of Britain's leading twentieth-century writers and starring actors as well-known as Caine, Gere and Hoskins, should have attracted so little notice. Mine is only the 13th review it has received on this board. I feel, however, that it deserves to be better known, not only because of the performances of Caine, Hoskins and Carrillo but also because of the sensitive and intelligent way it deals with such perennial topics as justice, love, friendship and the nature of violence. 8/10