A sex scandal that topples a British M.P. of Leftish persuasion seems to be connected somehow to the death in mysterious circumstances of a black Borstal boy. Just how and where these are connected is a matter of some interest and suspense -- most intensely in the mechanical but well-oiled scene in an elevator shaft -- and the eventual answer is sufficiently complicated for the scriptwriter to flatter himself with an explicit reference to John le Carré. Unfortunately the answer also lands us, as we had begun to foresee, in the Paranoid's Paradise of films like The Parallax View, and hip-deep in its standard iconography of ransacked apartments, bright headlights in the rearview mirror, tapped phones and rotating spools of tape, etc. And the hero (Gabriel Byrne), who started out to be a believably gullible and disreputable newspaperman, now has to do an unconvincing about-face into an intrepid and principled one. And it is a merely aggravating convenience that the smeared politician, who could have been of considerable help at some stage, has withdrawn himself to Italy and is unavailable for the duration. And the ending is a hasty waste. With Greta Scacchi, Denholm Elliott, and Ian Bannen; directed by David Drury. (1986) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.