A potential politically motivated kidnapping in Turkey, with the intended victim being daughter to the National Director of the C.I.A., calls for extraordinary preventative measures. Therefore, when the intelligence agency chief's wife relates of foreboding nightmares involving the girl, Kathryn, the ace of the C.I.A.s "Psychic Operations Warfare Unit", Sam Browning ( Michael Paré), is called upon to ensure her safekeeping. Browning is, as revealed by the script, from a tradition of "Spirit Warriors" and possesses a proved wild talent of foresight. Nonetheless when, after his alerts to supervisors in a Kurdish refugee camp are scorned and the kidnapping occurs, his purpose is altered from giving warning to attempting a rescue of Kathryn. He frees her, over natural physical objections of her captors, and subsequently the largest portion of the work becomes a cartoonish affair, with Sam actually pausing during gun battles to perform as a seer, this while stunt performers take over the action under the guidance of stunt coordinator Ric Roman Waugh, who plays ably in a small rôle while leading his charges well, as he later does with his entire cast as director of the well-crafted James Caan/Matthew Modine suspense feature IN THE SHADOWS. Shot in Israel with a meagre budget, production values are poor throughout, with frequent flaws in continuity, such as when one severely injured character periodically disdains effects of an apparently self-cauterizing gunshot wound but, after all, one is not expected to dwell upon such shortcomings amid a spate of small unit engagements and exploits of derring-do. Occasionally the storyline shifts to two negotiating parties, one representing the kidnappers (of unidentified nationality), the other C.I.A. personnel, and there is a clever final twist scripted in for these conversationalists, but the object of the movie is to show action, and there is plenty of that, with a break now and then to allow for a patriotic soliloquy. An element of suspense is missing as there can be no question of the outcome, and one need not have prescience to realize it.
Review of Blink of an Eye
