“My life is very strange. I don’t do anything normal.” These words are spoken by Simon Templar, famously known as the Saint, towards the end of the film named after him. By then, it hardly needs to be said. Early on, it’s apparent that Simon Templar, the gentleman-thief from classic pulp novels and a 1960s TV show, is quite the odd character. The 1997 movie adaptation, The Saint, reflects this peculiarity. Val Kilmer, portraying Simon, adds to the oddity as an actor drawn to such a role. Kilmer chose The Saint over reprising his role in a sequel to his popular hit, Batman Forever. Though the sequel with George Clooney, Batman & Robin, became one to skip, The Saint didn’t significantly propel Kilmer’s career forward. However, the film did become a modest success in early 1997, showcasing Kilmer’s star power at that time. With his unfortunate passing at 65, revisiting this quirky film on Paramount+ seems fitting.

Why Watch The Saint Tonight?

The general plot of The Saint aligns with those not-quite-Bond films like The Thomas Crown Affair, which Pierce Brosnan would remake in 1999. Indeed, prior to becoming Bond, Roger Moore portrayed Simon Templar on TV, hinting at the potential for a film franchise. Simon is the quintessential rogue—a non-lethal master thief—adept at using disguises, working for both money and adventure while manipulating his presence among high society and the criminal underworld. Effectively, his escapades are more about personal gain than world-saving heroics.

The film becomes an intriguing showcase for Kilmer through its depiction of Simon’s eccentricities, starting with a dark backstory involving harshness in a Catholic orphanage and the unintended death of a childhood friend—an aspect that offsets the otherwise whimsical tone of the film’s origin story prologue. Perhaps this quirky nature is essential for a character who revels in costume play. Various scenes illustrate how Simon enjoys his disguises, arguably more than the thefts themselves, a tendency also ascribed to Kilmer, who was reportedly keen on adding even more elaborate disguises. As presented, he switches between numerous wigs, fake mustaches, glasses, and makeup to transform into a grotesque old man at a lecture, a tortured artist resembling a caricature of his portrayal of Jim Morrison, an assistant to the Saint known to everyone as a disguise, and even a lookalike of the film’s Russian antagonist, among others. (Unsurprisingly, most of Simon’s accents seem vaguely Russian.)

It’s the tortured artist who inexplicably attracts the attention of scientist Emma Russell (Elisabeth Shue), whose formula for cold fusion Simon has been hired to steal. Falling in love with Emma and realizing the nefarious plans his Russian oligarch contact has for cold fusion, he eventually decides to protect the formula, Emma, and Mother Russia from these machinations, though his plans often feel less like heroism and more like fussy, disguise-heavy geopolitical meddling.

This all may make The Saint sound suspiciously like a bad movie. But in the wake of Kilmer’s death, it’s a wonderfully weird tribute to his own eccentricities as an actor. There’s a meta dimension to Simon, who obviously relishes his role-playing but admits he isn’t really sure who he is as a person; even his seduction of Emma happens largely through an alternate persona. The various pop-culture figures he recalls – Bond, Batman, etc. – have far stronger identities, even if they may struggle with morality (Bond) or duality (Batman). Kilmer makes the Saint seem genuinely feckless, even (or especially) when he enjoys the elaborate trappings of his lifestyle.

The movie also has a refreshing ’90s dimension in that despite some chases and fights, it’s not really a full-on action movie. Director Phillip Noyce tends to make old-fashioned thrillers, not pyro-heavy action, and The Saint, in its quirky way, follows that pattern. (It nonetheless makes an odd follow-up to Noyce’s Clear and Present Danger.) Even at the movie’s most ridiculous moments, it’s endearing to know that Kilmer wanted to do it at all – that this was his idea of a slick movie-star play to follow up a career peak. Kilmer often seemed most comfortable on screen when he was able to sidestep the obligations of a leading man, and The Saint now plays like a feature-length exploration of that ambivalence.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.

Stream The Saint on Paramount+