Rodman Romps on Riviera in Weak Thriller ‘Simon Sez’

With “Simon Sez,” a lackluster international action adventure, that well-known performance artist and occasional basketball player Dennis Rodman has his first starring screen role as an ace Interpol agent based on the French Riviera. Rodman, who made an amusing impression in Tsui Hark’s “Double Team” two years ago, keeps his cool even though this picture’s not so hot.

Elegantly tailored and good-humored, Rodman moves with his athlete’s grace and has a laid-back star presence. Movies and Rodman would seem to be made for each other, but the pictures will have to start getting better than this one.

A klutzy, dense private eye, Nick (Dane Cook), who flunked out of a training program to qualify for the CIA, was with the agency long enough to recognize on a Riviera beach Rodman’s hard-to-forget Simon, who is ex-CIA, or so it would seem. Somehow Nick managed to get hired by an American weapons manufacturer (Clayton Day) to rescue his kidnapped daughter Claire (Natalia Cigliuti).

It seems the father, Bernard (Henri Courseaux), of Claire’s handsome new boyfriend Michael (Filip Nicolitch), is attempting to get his hands on a disc containing details about her father’s latest secret ultra-deadly weapon. Bernard in turn plans to sell the disc to crazed arms dealer Ashton (Jerome Pradon). In an instant Nick has caught up Simon in this increasingly dangerous turn of events.

Written by Andrew Miller and Andrew Lowery from a story concocted by the film’s co-producer Moshe Diamant and one of its executive producers, Rudy Cohen, “Simon Sez” is not exactly a triumph of originality but supplies plenty of opportunities for martial arts exploits, chases and the like. Director Kevin Elders handles such action sequences with aplomb--just as he does his star--but no one could expect him or anyone else to do much with the script’s feeble yet frequent attempts at comic relief, not only with the swiftly tiresome Nick but also with a pair of silly robot monks (Ricky Harris and John Pinette), who are Simon’s sidekicks. Cook, Harris and Pinette are game but are torpedoed by terrible material.

Screen time would have been more profitably spent on building up the relationship with Simon’s sexy ex-lover (Emma Sjoberg), a martial arts virtuoso known as the Dancer, who has been hired by Bernard but is seduced by Simon into switching allegiances. Simon and the Dancer are a tempestuous duo: They’d as soon as kick-box each other as make love--and in this film these activities are by no means mutually exclusive. Well-photographed by Avraham Karpick, “Simon Sez” has Rodman and the Riviera, but they’re not enough.

* MPAA rating: PG-13, for violence and sexuality. Times guidelines: The violence is standard for the genre, but the one big love scene is pretty steamy though heavily stylized.

‘Simon Sez’

Dennis Rodman: Simon

Dane Cook: Nick

Ricky Harris: Micro

John Pinette: Macro

Filip Nicolitch: Michael

An Independent Artists Co. release of a Signature Films production. Director Kevin Elders. Producers Moshe Diamant and Ringo Lam. Executive producers Rudy Cohen, Dan Frisch, Kevin Jones. Screenplay Andrew Miller & Andrew Lowery; from a story by Diamant & Cohen. Cinematographer Avraham Karpick. Editor Alain Jakubowicz. Special effects supervisor Maurice Zisswiler. Stunt coordinator Xiong Xin Xin. Music Brian Tyler. Costumes Jaleh Falk. Production designer Damien Lanfranchi. Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes.

In general release.