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Show !:WW: IEIeell WaDirM i : -: W.r bv Hick Hrotigh 'Final Option' may become the new 'Reefer Madness' ( A Classic Recommended Good double-feature double-feature material Time-killer For masochists l ony The Final Option "The Final Option" is clicned," clunky, and it resolves re-solves its plot with bursts from a submachine gun. But it's "worth seeing because of its fascination as a specimen. "Option" is a frank, clumsily meticulous piece of right-wing propaganda. propa-ganda. No wonder President Reagan reportedly loves it. The basic plot is the old "undercover agent" story. A captain in Britain's special guerrilla "SAS" squadron (Lewis Collins) is tossed out for excessive brutality. But it's only a sham, so the hero can infiltrate the People's Lobby, a peace group protesting pro-testing nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom. From there on, the plot is predictable. The hero is accepted into the group after romancing the leader (Judy Davis), is suspected by her jealous radical boyfriend (Stephen Duttine), learns about the real terrorist plans of the group, is uncovered, and has his wife and child threatened. (The family ap pears, usually accompanied by treacley music.) Collins plays his role like an English Clint Eastwood. For anger, he quivers one lip. To portray shock, he quivers both lips. To add to our troubles, the film is filled with actors who are primarily primari-ly familiar to English audiences, au-diences, and it's about 15 minutes before we learn to distinguish Collins from the other stiff-lipped macho types around him. Judy Davis is an Australian Austral-ian actress with a beautiful face and an intriguing sexuality. sex-uality. But she is stiff when called upon to play the fanatical peacenik. Half of the movie is a flabby thriller. It doesn't pick up any steam until the terrorists march into the American Embassy, disguised dis-guised as a military band. Then, Ian Sharp's direction and the music score gets a nice percolating mood of menace. The plot carries the film the remainder of the way. In the final battle, there's even a visual composition right out of "Sgt. Rock" comics. Looming over the camera, the hero leads a charge down a hallway, his comrades streaming behind him in a long double line. The film calls itself a simple anti-terrorist story, but in the dull stretches of the movie it portrays the peaceniks as fools, mani pulated and led by radical leftists. In real life, one might well argue the peace movement has been too willing to allow Communist front groups to march under its banners. But the movie takes a big jump from that proposition. In the People's Lobby (which is portrayed as the most powerful anti-nuke group) the terrorists clearly control the organization. And the movie doesn't provide pro-vide a sincerely pacifistic character in the group. The script is careful not to impugn the whole movement. move-ment. In an early scene, a batch of British military officials reflect how sad it is that so many sincere people are misled by the few extremists, etc. But as the movie progresses, pro-gresses, you have to conclude con-clude that the people who aren't criminals are at least idiots. At the local pub, their entertainment consists of pretentiously bad guerrilla theater. Another didactic scene is a church rally where a radical cleric (Kenneth (Ken-neth Griffith) burbles about Jesus as revolutionary. When some skinheads start beating on the peaceniks (a radical ploy to create martyrs), mar-tyrs), the crowd eagerly breaks into a riot, heedless ' of the bishop's sermon about peace. , Left-wingers will be livid over this film, especially the part where the plot stops completely for a debate , between the radicals and , their hostages, led by the , American secretary of state , (Richard Widmark). The , argument finally grinds to a , halt when Davis insists she's ( out to disarm the world. ( Widmark : "But the Western ( democracies first-- correct?" cor-rect?" The segment reverses the usual confrontations. This time, it's the rebels who are 1 self-righteous and stuck on 1 platitudes. The Establish- 1 ment types also tend to spout 1 cliches, but they sound 1 common-sensical and ir- 1 reverent. When the Ameri- i can general (Robert Webber) Web-ber) is threatened with death, he laughs, "Shit, lady, that's the business I'm in!" "Final Option" may be greeted like "Reefer Madness" Mad-ness" a campy antidote to the very attitudes it tries to purvey. (When one radical smashes President Reagan's Rea-gan's picture, the gesture is supposed to mark him as a deep-dyed villain. Imagine how that bit was received at the White House screening!) Other audiences may cheer it! Left-wingers may think they're the only ones allowed to propagandize on film because they're a little more subtle. "Final Option" is laughably transparent at. times, but it lunges on with its own cockeyed momentum. |