Terry (Goldberg) works in banking, pinging out messages to clients all over the planet via her super-modern computer. Then, one evening, a coded message from an unknown individual claiming to be a British secret agent and Terry gets drawn into a world of espionage she thought only existed in movies.
by Gavin Bainbridge |
Published on
Release Date:
01 Jan 1986
Running Time:
100 minutes
Certificate:
15
Original Title:
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
A coded message in a computer, an unknown set of bad guys trying to off our civilian-dragged-into-cat-and-mouse-shenanigans, vertiginous cliffhangers (well, rooftop-hangers); this is a movie so sure of its roots it rarely bothers venturing out along any new branches. The puzzle aspect of the film is no real fun when the revelations come, they are straightforward and hardly momentous. Still, Goldberg makes an interesting deviation - female, black, awkward-looking - from the usual Barbie dolls (or Ken dolls, since this kind of thing rarely happens to a woman) and handles a poor script well thanks to her comediennes touch.
Whoopi's affable clowning aside, this film has little more than the title and the bad-mouthed postponement of cliche going for it.
If this film headed out in the direction of North by Northwest, it did an about turn somewhere along the way and came straight back to familiar, if well-worn, territory.
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