Hunky Australian Roland "Rollie" Tyler (Bryan Brown) works in the American film industry as a special effects artist. You should see his flat. It's full of alabaster heads and mannequins that look like murdered spouses. He's so good at his job, in fact, that Department of Justice agent Martin Lipton (Cliff DeYoung) want his help in faking the murder of a mob informant named Nicholas DeFranco (ironically, Law and Order's Jerry Orbach), before the mafia do it for real. Rollie reluctantly accepts the assignment, fixes DeFranco up with fake blood packs and even gets talked into playing the killer by head honcho Edward Mason (Mason Adams). The staged hit at an expensive Italian restaurant goes as planned and Rollie believes his part is over - until Lipton tries to kill him as a "loose end". Rollie escapes, but as more blood is spilled - the real stuff, this time - he is forced to confront a conspiracy which involves some very corrupt lawman and many millions of dollars. Fortunately, Rollie is resourceful, with a career's worth of Tinseltown trickery to surprise and snare his murderous pursuers. Meanwhile, middle-aged maverick homicide detective Lt. Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy) becomes suspicious of DeFranco's supposed death, but his investigation is frustrated by senior officials who have the power to keep their secrets buried - along with anyone who tries to stop them.
This 1986 action thriller became a hit at the box office, though it wasn't helped by an enigmatic title. In its favour, however, was a shrewd, occasionally playful script and a convincingly incredulous turn from stiff-lipped Bryan Brown, here caught between his breakout role in the Australian mini-series A Town Like Alice and Tom Cruise's bottle-juggling juggernaut Cocktail (also, somewhat less illustriously, a supporting role in the vacuous Paul McCartney vehicle Give My Regards to Broad Street). Early on, his ineffective flailing with a wily sniper demonstrates just how alien Rollie is in a world of cold kills and glibly indifferent corruptors, yet his ingenuity with practical illusions quickly evens the odds, and it's then that the film goes from a conventionally Hitchcockian man-on-the-run thriller to one which is confident enough to throw some black comedy and charismatic character business among the squealing car chases. Though an everyman, Rollie is confident in his abilities and the script doesn't bother explaining the specifics of his armoury, but instead lets him deploy each trap - which is what they manifestly become, original usage be damned - to the gleeful surprise of the audience.
Running alongside all this is the police investigation, coloured by Dennehy's roguishly charming renegade, but anyone hoping that these two characters will meet and spar will be disappointed as the threads don't link up until the end. As such, the narrative risks becoming disjointed, yet avoids it by slowly explaining the mayhem which Rollie is experiencing elsewhere. This makes it different from, say, The Fugitive, which gave us lawmen searching obsessively for our hero, and North By Northwest, which emitted the chase entirely. It also affords us some gently flirtatious moments between McCarthy and savvy computer geek Marisa Velez (Jossie DeGuzman), plus his guileless sergeant (amusingly played by Joe Grifasi), who unfortunately disappears after the second act, along with original bad guy Lipton. Ironically, considering the reason he wanted to bump off Rollie in the first place, this character is left as a loose end.
More awkwardness is found at film's end. The climax is handled well, with yet more slickly mischievous pyrotechnics, and the bad guy disposed of in a particularly novel way, but things should have ended there. Instead, an unnecessary postscript robs the story of a satisfactory ending and mars an otherwise excellent film. An unsuccessful sequel followed five years later, after which Bryan Brown re-focused his career on Australia.
This 1986 action thriller became a hit at the box office, though it wasn't helped by an enigmatic title. In its favour, however, was a shrewd, occasionally playful script and a convincingly incredulous turn from stiff-lipped Bryan Brown, here caught between his breakout role in the Australian mini-series A Town Like Alice and Tom Cruise's bottle-juggling juggernaut Cocktail (also, somewhat less illustriously, a supporting role in the vacuous Paul McCartney vehicle Give My Regards to Broad Street). Early on, his ineffective flailing with a wily sniper demonstrates just how alien Rollie is in a world of cold kills and glibly indifferent corruptors, yet his ingenuity with practical illusions quickly evens the odds, and it's then that the film goes from a conventionally Hitchcockian man-on-the-run thriller to one which is confident enough to throw some black comedy and charismatic character business among the squealing car chases. Though an everyman, Rollie is confident in his abilities and the script doesn't bother explaining the specifics of his armoury, but instead lets him deploy each trap - which is what they manifestly become, original usage be damned - to the gleeful surprise of the audience.
Running alongside all this is the police investigation, coloured by Dennehy's roguishly charming renegade, but anyone hoping that these two characters will meet and spar will be disappointed as the threads don't link up until the end. As such, the narrative risks becoming disjointed, yet avoids it by slowly explaining the mayhem which Rollie is experiencing elsewhere. This makes it different from, say, The Fugitive, which gave us lawmen searching obsessively for our hero, and North By Northwest, which emitted the chase entirely. It also affords us some gently flirtatious moments between McCarthy and savvy computer geek Marisa Velez (Jossie DeGuzman), plus his guileless sergeant (amusingly played by Joe Grifasi), who unfortunately disappears after the second act, along with original bad guy Lipton. Ironically, considering the reason he wanted to bump off Rollie in the first place, this character is left as a loose end.
More awkwardness is found at film's end. The climax is handled well, with yet more slickly mischievous pyrotechnics, and the bad guy disposed of in a particularly novel way, but things should have ended there. Instead, an unnecessary postscript robs the story of a satisfactory ending and mars an otherwise excellent film. An unsuccessful sequel followed five years later, after which Bryan Brown re-focused his career on Australia.