A spy movie that tries to transcend the dutifully ordinary twists of its plot and tell a tale of a squalid world in which nothing not friendship nor love nor life has any value. It is so relentless in rendering meanness that it leaves a bitter aftertaste.

Follows a trite formula on such an unduly large, far-flung scale that it finally gets out of hand, leaving the viewer confused and therefore indifferent.

Just when you think the international spy intrigue films have reeled to the final fadeout, along comes a picture like "Scorpio" to prove there's life in the old genre yet.

Lancaster manages to combine the fear of the fugitive with the toughness and resource we have come to expect of him.