History Film / TheSaint1997

In this version, Kilmer's character does not claim to be the Simon Templar created by Charteris. He is, in fact, an orphan who chooses his name, Simon Templar -- the first name from Simon Magus, and the last name from his childhood heroes, the Knights Templar. He refers to himself as Templar only during a flashback sequence at the start of the film.

In the movie, Templar is caught trying to steal a microchip from Ivan Tretiak, an ex-communist-turned-billionaire who dominates the gas and oil market in Moscow. Tretiak hires Templar to steal the formula for cold fusion from an American scientist named Dr. Emma Russell in exchange for the $8 million needed for him to reach $50 million, the amount Templar needs in order to retire from thievery for life. Assuming the identity of Thomas More, Templar locates Dr. Russell and attempts to get close enough to steal the formula, but things get very complicated shortly after he realizes he is falling for her...

* HotScientist: Dr. Emma Russell. Her EstablishingCharacterMoment even has Simon (in disguise, attending one of her lectures) thinking she's somebody else because of her looks... until she's summoned by the lecture's orator.
--->'''Simon''' (upon noticing he just put his foot in his mouth by disparaging her by mistake): Oops.

''The Saint'' is a 1997 film based on [[Franchise/TheSaint the character of Simon Templar]] created by Leslie Charteris. The film stars Creator/ValKilmer, Creator/ElisabethShue, and Creator/RadeSerbedzija. It was directed by Phillip Noyce and written by Jonathan Hensleigh and Wesley Strick.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Simon was an orphaned boy raised in a cruelly strict catholic school. One night, while attempting to escape, his childhood friend Agnes died from a fall when the school brought out its guard dogs. Ever since then, Simon has lost faith in miracles and the like.

* AdrenalineMakeover: Emma, in more ways than one. She even makes a LampshadeHanging that, even if she is an IllGirl (heart condition) and thus ''needs them to live'', she hadn't needed to take her pills for a while now (after almost keeling over on the back of a police van and Simon gave her a pair that he had palmed off and running all over Moscow for hours).

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: Not for the premise of someone discovering cold fusion, but for the means by which they do it. In a lecture, Emma provides absolutely no theoretical background or experimental results on which to base her discovery other than to simply write the finished formula on a chalkboard. She openly admits that the entire discovery was based on a gut feeling and [[HandWave hand waves]] the authenticity of her formula by claiming it's too beautiful to be wrong. Nobody in her audience (who are implied to also be trained scientists) objects to this.

* CoolCar: The then-new 1997 Volvo C70 coupe in metallic copper, a manual transmission, custom horn and a stereo playing "You're All I've Got Tonight" in triumph as he makes yet another escape.

* LousyLoversAreLosers: In one scene Simon Templar [[MasterOfDisguise disguises himself]] as the BigBad Ivan Tretiak, and trolls him by claiming that the most difficult part of the disguise was pretending to be so lousy in bed.

* ThemedAliases: All of Simon Templar's aliases are the names of Catholic saints, including [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_de_Porres Martin De Porres]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_of_Cologne Bruno Hartenfaust]], and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More Thomas More]].

* HollywoodNerd: Emma, who becomes less nerdy the more time she spends in Templar's company.

''The Saint'' is a 1997 film based on [[Franchise/TheSaint the character of Simon Templar]] created by Leslie Charteris. The film stars Creator/ValKilmer, Creator/ElisabethShue, and Rade Šerbedžija. It was directed by Phillip Noyce and written by Jonathan Hensleigh and Wesley Strick.

* SafetyInMuggles: Templar meets with Tretiak and his son to discuss the Russell job inside of an airport's transit room, which has hefty security, metal detectors and plenty of witnesses if something goes wrong (he mentions that they both will be safe that the other side has been searched thoroughly). Tretiak points out right after Simon arrives that he kill him regardless if he actually wanted to.

* SwissCheeseSecurity: Simon tries to pick a lock, only to find that the door is open when he leans against it.
-->'''Simon''': I love this country.

* SafetyInMuggles: Templar meets with Tretiak and his son to discuss the Russell job inside of an airport's transit room, which has hefty security, metal detectors and plenty of witnesses if something goes wrong (he mentions that they both will be safe that the other side has been searched thoroughly). Ilya and Tretiak point out right after Simon arrives that they couldn't care less and would try to kill him regardless if they actually wanted to.

* LostInACrowd: Simon's first heist has him escaping from Tretiak's goons by means of dressing like a hobo and walking alongside another one through Red Square (it helps that it was full of people like that as a result of the heating crisis) and ditches it appearing as a tourist. Later Simon manages to go to Emma's lecture in the last scene and sit ''right next to the lead Scotland Yard detective that is hunting him down'' almost unnoticed because of his disguise and even briefly trolls the guy (his partner ''does'' notice and frantically waves to his and realizes too late). Once he ditches it, his costume makes the police confuse him for some random British guy that is dressed the same... and the latter gets tackled by the cops as a result.

* LostInACrowd: Simon's first heist has him escaping from Tretiak's goons by means of dressing like a hobo and walking alongside another one through Red Square (it helps that it was full of people like that as a result of the heating crisis) and ditches it appearing as a tourist. Later Simon manages to go to Emma's lecture in the last scene and sit ''right next to the leader of the Interpol task force that is hunting him down'' almost unnoticed because of his disguise and even briefly trolls the guy (his partner ''does'' notice and frantically waves to his and realizes too late). Once he ditches it, his costume makes the Interpol people confuse him for some random British guy that is dressed the same... and the latter gets tackled by the cops as a result.

* MasterOfDisguise: Simon, natch. It is not until he appears alongside Karpov in the film's denouement that Interpol finally gets a clear picture of how he looks without a costume, after ''years'' hunting him down (and he still manages to sit right next to the task force's ranking officer in the very last scene, almost unnoticed).

* PoliceAreUseless: Interpol. It's not until Emma talks to them about halfway through the film that they ''finally'', after '''years''' of hunting Simon, get that his aliases follow the motif of being named after Catholic saints, for starters. They have what looks like a dozen different sketches of the various appearances Simon has been sighted in and still don't realize he's standing right in front of them going through an airport security line. One is ready to dismiss him because his ''accent is different,'' although the other points out that he could easily be faking it and he has the same eyes but a different build.

* CarCushion: Used as a means of escape in the first heist of the film (the truck was deliberately loaded with carboard boxes on the back by Simon).

* LostInACrowd: Simon's first heist has him escaping from Tretiak's goons by means of dressing like a hobo and walking alongside another one through Red Square (it helps that it was full of people like that as a result of the heating crisis). Later Simon manages to go to Emma's lecture in the last scene and sit ''right next to the leader of the Interpol task force that is hunting him down'' almost unnoticed because of his disguise (and once he ditches it, his other costume makes the Interpol people confuse him for some random British guy that is dressed the same... and the latter gets tackled by the cops as a result).