In the final analysis, though it starts nobly, the movie does not accomplish what it set out to do: i.

Fortnum overhears Plarr telling Leon of his adultery with Clara and saying that he, not Fortnum, is the father of the child that Clara is expecting.

Nonetheless, he finds himself obsessed by Clara and seduces her with a pair of highly decorative sunglasses. Another person the doctor meets is Clara, whom he immediately falls in love with, but there is a problem: Clara is Charley's wife.

The UK embassy then relieves Fortnum of his consulship and tell him he will be appointed an OBE in the next UK honours. As a boy, he was forced to flee his native Paraguay after the arrest and subsequent disappearance of his father, a dissident.

Plarr's mother, once a beauty and now bloated, along with some of his previous mistresses, attends his funeral.

Army paratroopers surround the hut while the failed priest, Rivas, conducts a makeshift mass inside with the rain coming down. The staff of Variety wrote that "strong talents on both sides of the camera haven’t managed to breathe life into this intricate tale of emotional and political betrayal and [the] result is a steady dose of tedium. Plarr initially refuses, but reluctantly agrees when Leon tells him that his father is one of the prisoners.Read all During the Dirty War, a half-English doctor in Argentina befriends the police, the rebels and the alcoholic Honorary British Consul, whose Latino wife he seduces. He accepts the fact that he is not the father of the baby, and even suggests naming the child Eduardo, after Plarr. The movie was filmed on location in Veracruz, Mexico and Mexico City, and at the Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England. The story is set in the provincial city of Corrientes, part of the Argentine Littoral, on the shore of the Paraná River. Along the way he meets an array of people, including British Consul Charley Fortnum (Michael Caine), a representative in Latin America who is trying to keep revolution from occurring.

The one character who is neither confused nor mechanical is the honorary consul, played by Michael Caine in an outstanding per- formance. The book was made into the 1983 film The Honorary Consul (also released as Beyond the Limit), directed by John Mackenzie, with Richard Gere as Plarr and Michael Caine as Fortnum. Another person the doctor meets is Clara (Elpidia Carrillo), whom he immediately falls in love with, but there is a problem: Clara is Charley's wife.

Fortnum spends much of his time, as he faces up to his impending death, sentimentalizing about Clara and remembering the fearsome figure of his father. The film was produced by Norma Heyman, marking the first time that a British woman entirely produced an independent feature film in history.