Flashpoint

This film hardly gets any showing on television, but it fits in nicely into the sub genre of conspiracy thriller movies like Executive Action,Winter Kills and The Parallex View. This is a sideways look at the Kennnedy Conspiracy from the point of view of two bystanders who happen to be cops.Kris Kristoferson and Treat Williams play Border Patrol officers who stumbled upon a buried jeep, a body, a rifle and a whole lot of cash in the Texas desert.Who could it be?Why have the Feds shown up all of a sudden?Could there be a link?Should they take the money and split or investigate? It has a great cast of actors who would go on to be familiar faces like Tess Harper, Miguel Ferrer,Kurtwood Smith and Jean Smart.Kristoferson and Williams are always reliable actors. This an interesting movie that asks what happened to the Other Gunmen if you believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was not acting alone on 22 November 1963.Oliver Stone's JFK was then first big studio movie to explicitly challenge the Warren Commission report.Some films are made just before their time, which means that it will be overlooked.

It starts out promising enough, coming across as a low-rent 'Simple Plan' with a budget Bill Pullman (Treat Williams, saving some scenes with that 'Prince of the City' bluster) and Kris Kristofferson (taking his shirt off more than thrice) coming across a jeep from 1963 carrying a bolt-action rifle, a skeleton (which really didn't get enough shots), and a lot of cash-money to drop like it's hott. Kris wants to keep the dollar-dollar bills y'all without question but Treat wants to investigate where it came from and get some semblance of a plot underway. From there, I'm not quite sure what goes sour. The film switches gears to a drug bust and then tries unsuccessfully to return to the original plot. If there was a connection between the drug bust and the original plot, beyond introducing Kurtwood Smith into the film, I missed it. Miguel Ferrer is underused and Smith is saddled with a lame TV movie villain role. He was much better in 'Robocop'. In fact, they both were. Much better. There's a scene of showstoppingly stupid dialogue between Smith and Kristofferson where you can tell the writers are trying to make a point about crime but just aren't articulate enough to get it across. There's about 45 minutes where it feels like nothing happened. The climax is predictable and although the ending has some intelligence to it, you're just too worn down by then to appreciate it. The theme song at the end (of course it's very 80's, about 'love on the run', and called 'Flashpoint') is hilarious. Not recommended.

I would like to contradict another citizen of the movie world about this movie. The plot is not childish, though it has a couple of holes in it (like events around the supporting male star), but it demands the viewer attention to details - a characteristic of a good cop. But the picture is about that, good cops - and showing, as in a western of the mid 70s, that all cowboys and cops are rotten, only in different ways. This grim view of society (a society built in the capitalist, Washingtonian way) is very boring, and stupid for many that prefer to view life as kinky, and prefer to assume the dollar bills are more clean then those 800,000 we see in a bag in the desert... If you have not seen plainclothes men (from Washington, Moscow, or Lisboa) acting like elephants in a China store, you would assume those actors were really bad. Learn more, please. The ending will be surprising and emotional for viewers attentive enough to discern the real plot behind the plot. It is all about the industrial-military complex taking over the lives of everybody in the USA, and reaching as far out as across the Atlantic, and even the Mediterranean, as the Kosovo War reminded us. A B-movie, yes! A bad movie, decidedly, passionately not. There are plenty of FLASHPOINT titles around, as if to confuse viewers on purpose. Would that be part of the conspiracy this movie is all about? :-)

Prior to stumbling on this thriller, the movie Southern Comfort was the most under rated GREAT movie I had ever seen. This movie surpassed that! To put it mildly,this movie is awesome! It's fast paced, it's believable, and it's got a GREAT ending that you'll never figure out. All of the actors do a superb and believable job in their respective parts and this ninety - four (94) minute thriller is FANTASTIC! The IMDb movie rating really surprised me because everyone I have ever turned on to this movie has flipped over it in a manner like I did. Regardless, it's a GREAT movie that I believe will become a classic years from now.

I remember seeing this movie when it first came out in 1984, and was frankly lost. But several years ago I found it on video and bought it. After seeing it all over again, I now understand it. This movie is very similar in some ways to The Sixth Sense. There were lots of plot items sitting in the open, but you never see them. Clues and hints are dropped constantly into this movie. And at the end, is where they are all suddenly brought together. I do not compare this to Sixth Sense for quality, but it is worth seeing in my opinion. Expecially if you are one of the JFK conspiracy nuts. There is enough information in this movie alone to give Oliver Stone 4 or 5 more movies.

Eight hundred thousand dollars buried in desert sand in a wrecked Jeep just might be a ticket out of a Border Patrol job turning more bureaucratic and stifling by the moment. Agents Kris Kristofferson and Treat Williams try to find where the dollars, and the Jeep, and its dead driver,have come from. They'd like to split with the money and escape the irritating changes about to drive them off the Texas desert they know so well, but honesty and curiosity compel them to make sure the money's not tainted. Federal agent Kurtwood Smith, in from Washington knowing all the answers full well, has other plans for them. I saw this film in its first release in 1984, and admired the way in which the script explored nuances of the conspiracy-fuelled '60s in American society and politics. I also liked the skill with which the script dropped hints and clues that, by film's end, were perfectly clear and coherent - a pleasing adjunct to the major puzzle of the decade. But in the years of watching it since, I've come to like best the acting skills which the cast, ably directed, demonstrate with texture and charm. Kristofferson and Williams are among the most appealing buddies you'll find in any thriller - in fact I can't think of a better pair; they complement each other as well as Al Pacino and John Goodman do in Sea of Love, and that's the highest praise I can offer. I can't think why Kristofferson and Williams (or Pacino and Goodman, for that matter) haven't been paired again by an enterprising producer. Jean Smart and Tess Harper are equally charming and nuanced in smaller roles made large by Smart's fiery energy and Harper's thoughtful attractiveness. Miguel Ferrer and Guy Boyd are perfect as a pair of amiably corrupt colleagues. On the dark side, Smith and Patrol boss Kevin Conway, as well as "Department of Public Safety" (ie. Texas Ranger) marshal Rip Torn, show how true villains are simply focused career men who believe implacably in the warped values they've espoused. Torn, at least, has the grace to change. At the end, he makes a statement to Kristofferson which might be our beacon too, our rationale for keeping up the search for truth in this lie-filled first decade of the new century: Looking back at his own choices, and forward to Kristofferson's tense future, Torn barks "Do it! Be the one who got away! Whatever happens, should've happened years ago." A very fine action film, remarkably well-performed.

"Flashpoint" is, essentially, an unbalanced action film that doesn't really know what it wants to be. It could be lighthearted comedy/action, or a mystery, or something else altogether. Whatever it ends up being isn't really complete or wholly compelling. The script is not worth mentioning here. So, what is good? The actors, for the most part. I've always liked Kris Kristofferson, and he usually earns it. His performance is very believable. The best performance is actually by Kurtwood Smith, who plays the heavy. He offers up one of the most menacing and powerful monologues I've ever heard in a scene where his and Kristofferson's characters wait to make a drug bust. I was glad to see Tess Harper, one of my favorite actresses. She's given little or nothing to do, but she has a compelling presence. Two-thirds of the way through the film, she disappears as if she never really mattered in the first place. On the other end, acting wise, Rip Torn offers up a totally ridiculous characterization and nearly ends up embarrassing himself. And he's usually quite good, in my opinion. There's not much else to speak of here. William Tannen is not what you would exactly call an inspired director. This is the only thing approaching a decent film that he was ever involved with. Peter Moss provides some good cinematography, so there's usually at least something worth looking at. Tangerine Dream's soundtrack IS nice, with the right elements of mystery and tension. But a real low point is the closing credits theme. The lyrics sum up basically everything we've seen in the film in the most obvious, unimaginative way. It's like some sort of cheesy rock/folk storytelling song. If you felt like the ending had any sort of good quality, I can guarantee that this stupid song will take that thought straight out of your head. "Flashpoint" is pretty much an example of a film that is only interesting in context. There's plenty of other films from this era that are timeless or have at least aged pretty well. This is not one of them.

Bobby Logan (Kris Kristofferson) and Ernie Wyatt (Treat Williams) are Texas border officers working in the area of San Antonio. They both are threatened of loosing their jobs due to the utilization of a type of underground radars to locate illegal immigrants from Mexico. One day, Bobby finds a buried 1962 jeep, with a skeleton, a rifle and a wallet with US$ 800,000.00 (in 1984 – it was lots of money) in bills of 1962 and 1963 and shares this discover with his pal Ernie. These findings will jeopardize their lives, and this situation will long until the last scene of this suspenseful movie. A great thriller and adventure, that has traces of `The X-Files', with a mystery and conspiracy in the government without a conclusive end. Further, this movie is extremely enhanced by the music of Tangerine Dream. My vote is seven.

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