Obsessed with the videogame Cloak & Dagger, young boy Davey Osborne (Henry Thomas) spends his non-game time roleplaying spy capers with his imaginary friend, the game’s lead hero Jack Flack (Dabney Coleman).
When he inadvertently stumbles onto a real covert mission, Davey finds himself on the run from real bad guys with real guns…
I have only seen this movie once before, on TV as a child.
It has been decades but I can still remember so many images from it: the old woman’s missing fingers; Dabney Coleman as the imaginary friend; the finale on the plane.
A remake of the 1949 suspense thriller The Window, Cloak & Dagger is kind of a miracle.
Directed by Richard Franklin (Roadgames) and written by Todd Holland (Fright Night), walks the line between a kid’s adventure with a suspense thriller.
The key is that the film invests in making sure the thriller elements have stakes.
Franklin, a devotee of Alfred Hitchcock, had already proven himself a sure hand with suspense in films like Patrick, Roadgames and his previous collaboration with Holland, Psycho II.
Here, he knows exactly how to deploy the Hitchcock playbook to create a tense man-on-the-run thriller. The only difference is that instead of Cary Grant or Robert Doant, it is a kid.
The film’s architecture of suspense is so solid and familiar, you could almost swap out Henry Thomas for an adult actor, and it would still work.
While it is not that violent, it never feels like the villains are soft-pedalled - henchmen matter-of-factotum debating whether a kid is worth asking for a bonus; villain Michael Murphy telling Thomas he is going to shoot him in the stomach and leave him to die.
The other element that builds the stakes is the portrayal of Thomas’s relationship with his dad.
In only a few scenes, Thomas and Coleman create a distinctly different dynamic to the one he has with Flack. Both characters are dealing with the loss of his mother, and Davey is clearly using his imagination as an escape.
What I appreciated about the film is that it does not go down the familiar route of making his father some kind of ultra-disciplinarian, or emotionally cut off.
Instead, it is Flack who exhibits a complete disconnect from danger.
Davey’s father is struggling to understand him, but is still present. What makes him interesting - and what enabled him to finally connect with Davey - is that he constantly trying to meet his son where he is at.
The other element I love about this movie is the way it conceives of the titular game, and Davey’s interest in it.
Jack Flack himself sums up what the movie understands about kids and how they imagine the world.
I was into spy thrillers as a kid, and I remember checking out books from the library on weapons and espionage.
Flack and the kid talk to each other with a vague approximation of spy lingo. The way Davey moves and talks feels like a kid who has watched a lot of movies like this.
Rather elegantly, the film manages to juggle the spy thriller plot with the lead character's arc of gradually moving away from his imaginary friend.
A gem.
If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour.
Bill Fairclough has been likened to Harry Palmer but do you know who Fairclough is? If you enjoy reading fact based espionage thrillers, of which there are only a handful of decent ones, do try reading Bill Fairclough’s Beyond Enkription. It is an enthralling unadulterated fact based autobiographical spy thriller and a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots.
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting is that this book is so different to any other espionage thrillers fact or fiction that I have ever read. It is extraordinarily memorable and unsurprisingly apparently mandatory reading in some countries’ intelligence agencies’ induction programs. Why?
Maybe because the book has been heralded by those who should know as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”; maybe because Bill Fairclough (the author) deviously dissects unusual topics, for example, by using real situations relating to how much agents are kept in the dark by their spy-masters and (surprisingly) vice versa; and/or maybe because he has survived literally dozens of death defying experiences including 20 plus attempted murders.
The action in Beyond Enkription is set in 1974 about a real maverick British accountant who worked in Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in London, Nassau, Miami and Port au Prince. Initially in 1974 he unwittingly worked for MI5 and MI6 based in London infiltrating an organised crime gang. Later he worked knowingly for the CIA in the Americas. In subsequent books yet to be published (when employed by Citicorp, Barclays, Reuters and others) he continued to work for several intelligence agencies. Fairclough has been justifiably likened to a posh version of Harry Palmer aka Michael Caine in the films based on Len Deighton’s spy novels.
Beyond Enkription is a must read for espionage cognoscenti. Whatever you do, you must read some of the latest news articles (since August 2021) in TheBurlingtonFiles website before taking the plunge and getting stuck into Beyond Enkription. You’ll soon be immersed in a whole new world which you won’t want to exit. Intriguingly, the articles were released seven or more years after the book was published. TheBurlingtonFiles website itself is well worth a visit and don’t miss the articles about FaireSansDire. The website is a bit like a virtual espionage museum and refreshingly advert free.
Returning to the intense and electrifying thriller Beyond Enkription, it has had mainly five star reviews so don’t be put off by Chapter 1 if you are squeamish. You can always skip through the squeamish bits and just get the gist of what is going on in the first chapter. Mind you, infiltrating international state sponsored people and body part smuggling mobs isn’t a job for the squeamish! Thereafter don’t skip any of the text or you’ll lose the plots. The book is ever increasingly cerebral albeit pacy and action packed. Indeed, the twists and turns in the interwoven plots kept me guessing beyond the epilogue even on my second reading.
The characters were wholesome, well-developed and beguiling to the extent that you’ll probably end up loving those you hated ab initio, particularly Sara Burlington. The attention to detail added extra layers of authenticity to the narrative and above all else you can’t escape the realism. Unlike reading most spy thrillers, you will soon realise it actually happened but don’t trust a soul.