Strong and Moving!

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Amateur movie with Big budget

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I read the book twice. It is very well written as are most of Frederick Forsyth's books. When I heard the movie was out, I made a special effort to watch it. What a disappointment. This made-for-TV movie deviates in many details from the book. Of course it is not unusual for a screen play to deviate from the book it is based upon. However, in my opinion, there was no need to have this screenplay deviate from Forsyth's book. The location and description of the "home" of the bad guy is gutted in the movie. The scenes where the bad guy is brought to task are a sad parody of the book. The "secret" that is revealed at the end of the book was omitted in the movie, which means the whole use of the "secret" becomes a disconnect. And, as much as I like Sam Elliot as an actor, in this case the part of Cal Dexter was seriously miscast. I will not bother to watch this movie again. My recommendation: read the book and skip this movie.

Nice to see Sam again. Much as I like watching his movies, I really hope this doesn't become just another series - maybe an infrequent series -like two or three a year. Its pretty obvious that there is a lot of background in this - and in order to keep up the production values, it needs to be treated like the Special Event that Sam is. It was just nice to see him looking like a regular person. But he still has that incredible voice (he's the voice of IBM and the Beef Council, too). There was lot of thought that went into this - lots of pre-production was very evident - it was well made - and worth the wait!!

I liked it. Sure it was kinda silly and certainly flawed but it entertained me for 2 hours. Mostly this is due to Sam Elliot; always a compelling screen presence. The first half of the movie pulled me in and seemed somewhat believable. Then there was the second half. Like the part with the pilot and how carelessly Dexter endangers her. That was a total amateur move and at odds with his previously established professionalism. This is when the movie started going off the rails for me. That and the cartoonishly evil senator willingly to do whatever it takes to complete Project Whatchamacallit. Then the ending, again Dexter displays amateurism and was lucky, ridiculously lucky, to get away with what he did. But, then again, stuff blew up real good. Hey, it was an entertaining enough flick and if it ever turns into a TV series I'll watch it, but then again I used to watch MacGuyver.

I happened to surf past this last night, and I have to say it surprised me. I was a big Frederick Forsythe novel fan years ago, and I did not realize this was based on one of his books until the credits rolled.I missed the first half-hour (I'll watch it again sometime), but I was still able to enjoy every minute after that. I typically think about TV movies as being on a different scale - but this movie breaks the mold.If you enjoyed "Day of the Jackal" (the original) you'll really like this one too. The main character "Dexter" had just the right mix of "good guy, bad guy" and the cinematography of the locations/background made me feel like I was on the mission with him. Heck, even my wife liked it!