This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Walter Lloyd (Gene Hackman) runs a Dallas lumber company. His son Chris (Matt Dillon) repairs stock cars and doesn't get along with him. His wife Donna travels to Paris but she goes missing. Father and son go off to look for her. Soon the stodgy businessman Walter turns into a man of action without Chris' knowledge. Walter is approached by two gun men with Donna's jewelry but he turns the table on them. He used to work for the CIA and reconnects with an old college Barney Taber (Josef Sommer). Chris saves his father from another gun attack and he finally comes clean to his son.Matt Dillon is overplaying the bratty know-it-all rebellious teenager role. He overplays everything by a little like when he is first told. Hackman is more of the lead and he's very solid. It's a worthwhile watch for Hackman fans. It goes to lesser seen location like Germany. It's a competent spy action thriller but Matt Dillon's character keeps annoying me with his arrogant ignorance. He's being shot at, his father is a secret spy, his mother is kidnapped and he's still chasing tail.

I've read some other reviews and blogs about how bad Hackman was ,a forced portrayal and that Dillon was a one note wooden character. I disagree because the movie works on the level it was designed for by having the most unlikely people involved in international intrigue. Hackman plays Walter Lloyd a mild mannered who lives in Dallas with his wife and son Chris played by Dillon. They have a shaky relationship at best with Chris resenting his father somewhat as a bumbling old fool and Walter's wife Donna also having issues with him for being less of a romantic husband. She is going on a trip to France but he doesn't want to go so she goes alone. The movie takes a while to get going until she is kidnapped and both father and son have to go and save her. Chris is all smug about going to France since he speaks French and thinks he will be the man having to lead his bumbling father around by the hand. That is until his dad rattles of French like a pro and gets tough with people. He then reveals to Chris that a long time ago he used to work for the CIA as a spy during the cold war and that with a wife and new baby on the way -he had chosen to retire so he could be with them. He also tells Chris that his real name is Derrick Potter and that his name is really Duncan- Walter aka Duncan would have made a lot of enemies during his spy days and he knew he had to keep his family safe hence why they were put into a type of witness protection program.The movie then takes off with Walter and Chris on the run from other factions who want both of them dead and a major double cross by one of the agents. The only thing I can see that keeps this movie from being better is what is changed from the book- most notable that in the book Walter gets tough on Chris and slaps him for almost getting them killed and the assassin Carla is actually shot and killed later on after tricking Chris into exposing his father to another assassin.Also in the book the whole reason for the kidnapping of Walters wife is told in flashback - how they had caught 6 out of 7 German spies. The 7th spys family is murdered and its described in detail- the killer is also described so we know it's not Walter. In the movie ,Walter simply jokes with Chris about almost getting them killed due to Chris's infatuation with the sexy assassin Carla and Carla is not killed ,She ends up getting slugged by Chris and sent flying across some cafe tables after she holds him at gunpoint revealing to Chris that she is one of the assassins sent to kill Chris and his father. She is not seen again after that scene. They do mention the circumstances around the 7th spy who got away but the murders are only briefly touched on by the 7th spy when he finally meets up with Walter ,they are not shown. The ending in the book is different too with Walter staying behind in Europe while Chris and his mother go home realizing how much Walter has changed and that he was not the father/husband they both thought they knew,in the movie Chris ,Walter and Donna end up hugging each other in a field someplace in East Germany after they save her from the double agent and the cold war spy who thought Walter had killed his family. Overall though , 8/10 .a bit uneven but entertaining with both Dillon and Hackman giving decent performances considering the characters are a bit underwritten.

It must be a popular daydream for bored family men facing their mid-life crisis: to be exposed as a dashing international spy beneath that humdrum suburban façade, with a chance to reveal your cloak-and-dagger expertise for a suddenly adoring young wife and now respectful teenage son. The idea might have worked as a deadpan comic fantasy, but the decision to play it straight resulted in a silly movie with nowhere near the credibility needed for intrigue of this sort. Hollywood might very well be incapable of producing a good, plausible espionage thriller (as of 1985, at any rate), and here's the evidence to prove it.

But I'm not one of them: "Miracle Worker" and "Bonnie and Clyde" are among my favorites.At a pinch,you can find here one of Penn's obsessions: the hero in need of a father (which was the main subject of Penn's first effort "the left-handed gun" .But in the America of the eighties it's more a glorification of the family which triumphs here.Gene Hackman and Matt Dillon give passable performances but the triteness of the screenplay (when you think of the perfection of the three movies I mention above and of the complexities of "Little BIg Man" or "Mickey One" ) will not satisfy Penn's true fans.At a pinch,a present for Mother's Day.