— My name is Samantha Steel. Some people call me Sam.
— Edmund Dorf. Some people call me Edna.

Caine, as always, is excellent as Palmer, the epitome of black-rimmed cool in an age when real men never owned up to defective eyesight, and he brings just the right level of subdued motivation to the part of a man resigned to a life he doesn’t want but from which he can’t escape (…) Much of the movie was filmed in West Berlin, giving a welcome, gritty feel to the proceedings that anchors the story in a definite era of post-Bond realism (…) The tone is one of weary cynicism and fatalism that provides challenging entertainment as it paints a grey picture of those paid to protect us. — Richard Cross