Cloak & Dagger

Cloak & Dagger (1984)

Runtime: 101 minutes

Directed by: Richard Franklin

Starring: Henry Thomas, Dabney Coleman, Michael Murphy, Christina Nigra, John McIntire

From: Universal

Last night I saw this movie, one that I have watched before... including as a young child. Read all about it below: 

Nostalgia may play a part in my rating, as I remember watching this movie on a broadcast TV channel one night way back in the mid to late 1980's, meaning I was still a little kid at the time. To think that another movie I remember watching on the same channel was f'ing D.C. Cab. No, I can't explain how you could make a broadcast TV version of that film, either.

Anyhow, of course a kid like me would enjoy an adventure where a 12 year old boy is in love with adventure games and playing spy... and he has to do it in real life when he is passed an Atari cartridge (yes, that definitely dates this) that secretly has plans from the United States military for a brand new fighter jet and various bad guys want it so they can sell those plans to foreign countries... as an adult, you are quite surprised at how this was a movie where the boy Davey and his younger pal Kim are both put in constant peril and are shot at, threatened bodily harm, see traumatizing things, do traumatizing things, etc. It never bothered me back then and it still doesn't now; I don't know about the kids of today, though...

As an adult I also notice how it is pretty sad that Davey is a child who just lost his mother and he is distant from his father because they can't relate to each other so because of the mental strain he is under he comes up with an imaginary friend that is the manifestation of his favorite Atari game character, the secret agent Jack Flack... and he imagines Flack as looking like his dad. Movies for kids were way different back then... at least the conflict between father and son has the expected nice resolution, and this was the closet we got to Dabney Coleman, Action Star. I was definitely amused to see “Bill” Forsythe as the stereotypical 1980's nerd who loved videogames, computers, and tabletop games... he had bad teeth, a beard, Coke bottle glasses... then again, that sounds like the description for some of today's nerds!

I can also appreciate at an adult how this was directed by the Australian director Richard Franklin, a man who was an admitted giant fanboy of Hitchcock, and it showed in movies like Road Games, Psycho II, and this... it's a Hichcockian mystery that happens to have kids as the leads. There are even some twists that The Master of Suspense would probably appreciate as they are right out of his playbook. Additionally, it was a nice nod how the sheriff from Psycho (John McIntire) is in this movie in a supporting role.

I understand those that don't feel as strongly about the movie; me remembering it from so many years ago does play a part in my opinion of it currently, along with general 80's nostalgia. But, the Hitchcockian elements is what made me entertained as an adult film fan.