****SPOILERS*** Barry Newman as American lawyer William Mathison gets involved with a Nazi ring in Salzburg Austria who's job it is to keep the identities of Nazi war criminals from being made public;and thus subject to being made to play for their crimes. This all stems from a medal box dredged up by Richard Bryant, Patrick Jordan,from the bottom of Lake Fintersee that's been dumped there by the fleeing Nazis at the end of WWII. Before he can open the box Bryant is murdered by two ex-Nazis who've been on his tail form the start. That alerts the local police as well as the CIA KGB MOSSAD and German and Polish intelligence agencies to scramble for the box in that now all their leads to capture the fugitive Nazi war criminals have gone up in smoke.
Like most movies of this type, spy films, the plot twists and turns resulting in Mathison, an innocent bystander at first,getting caught up with the action in him trying to locate the missing box. That in him getting involved with Bryant's sister Anna, Anna Karina, who's targeted by the ex or on the lamb Nazis who feels she has knowledge about the contents in the box in who the Nazi war criminals, with their new identities, really are. We have a number of assassinations car chases and shoot-outs while at the same time enjoying the scenery of picturesque Austria until we finally get to see who's behind all this action. Who just happens to be a victim of the very Nazis themselves that he seems to be, in order to save his own behind, covering up for.
****SPOILERS**** In the end Mathison save's Anna's brother Johann, Klaus-Maria Brandauer, from the Nazis holding him hostage until he reveals where the box, that has since gone missing by him both stealing as well as burying it, is hidden. The person who set this whole crazy plan up, who shall remain nameless, ended up getting rubbed out by the very Nazis that he was protecting! And as for the box itself it ended up unsealed were it was all these years at the bottom of Lake Fintersee with all its contents, the secret list of fugitive Nazis, too soggy and totally destroyed due to water damage to make any sense of them.
Like most movies of this type, spy films, the plot twists and turns resulting in Mathison, an innocent bystander at first,getting caught up with the action in him trying to locate the missing box. That in him getting involved with Bryant's sister Anna, Anna Karina, who's targeted by the ex or on the lamb Nazis who feels she has knowledge about the contents in the box in who the Nazi war criminals, with their new identities, really are. We have a number of assassinations car chases and shoot-outs while at the same time enjoying the scenery of picturesque Austria until we finally get to see who's behind all this action. Who just happens to be a victim of the very Nazis themselves that he seems to be, in order to save his own behind, covering up for.
****SPOILERS**** In the end Mathison save's Anna's brother Johann, Klaus-Maria Brandauer, from the Nazis holding him hostage until he reveals where the box, that has since gone missing by him both stealing as well as burying it, is hidden. The person who set this whole crazy plan up, who shall remain nameless, ended up getting rubbed out by the very Nazis that he was protecting! And as for the box itself it ended up unsealed were it was all these years at the bottom of Lake Fintersee with all its contents, the secret list of fugitive Nazis, too soggy and totally destroyed due to water damage to make any sense of them.