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Cloak & Dagger
Fantasy Dad
1984
Review: March 18, 2008
Director: Richard Franklin
Starring: Henry Thomas, Dabney Coleman, Christina Nigra, Tim Rossovich, William Forsythe
It might help.
THE SETUP:
Boy with imaginary dad gets involved in espionage plot.
DISCUSSION:
Having gotten to bed at 4am the night before, I decided that a young adult movie might be just mild enough for my weary sensibilities. Little did I know I would end up taking four pages of notes on this movie—for most I do only two.
We open by discovering that this is an Allan Carr production. Yes, that brilliant impresario who brought us both Can’t Stop the Music and Grease 2 [as well as, it must be admitted, Grease]. There’s some spy movie-lite kind of stuff as Dabney Coleman as secret agent Jack Flack infiltrates this party and tries to get away with this case. We notice with dismay that as Jack, Dabney has trimmed his mustache down to little Pink Panther-type L shapes. Disappointing. He’s about to escape when two huge dice come rolling along, and suddenly we see that he is in the imagination of Davey, this kid played by Henry Thomas of E.T. He is with his adult friend Morris who owns a video game shop, and Kim, this blonde little girl of about eight.
We soon find out that Davey is absolutely obsessed with Jack Flack, this character from Cloak and Dagger, this Atari video game. Please gear yourselves up for near-constant Atari product placement, to the extent that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this movie was the winning entry in some sort of “Write a story about Atari” contest.
Anyway, so for some reason that is still unclear to me, Morris sends Dave and Kim to this skyscraper, head of some electronics division that makes Cloak and Dagger. I think the reason is to get him a Twinkie [the cream-filled yellow snack cake, not an effeminate gay man]. Watch how Davey, who is playing espionage to the point that he is verging on psychotic, sneaks into the marble office of the upscale office building with fake black, strikingly realistic toy gun drawn. That kid would have 50 rounds of bullets in him within six feet of the door today.
Waiting for the elevator, he sees two thugs, one of whom is HOT—I am pretty sure he is “Mustache Man” from Looker. Well, always welcome to see him again, and we get a lot more coverage this time. Davey sees that he has a gun. Davey takes the stairs up, and this movie has decided to mirror the windows of the building across the way so that we can see Davey and others in the reflections. He sees the thugs upstairs beating up this guy, and suddenly this dude in a white lab coat comes down and hands a cassette of the Cloak and Dagger video game, saying to hide it, protect it with his life, etc. Then the thugs come in and shoot the guy, right in front of little Davey! I hope you’re not appalled, because there is going to be a LOT more violence happening to and in front of kids from here on out. Anyway, by the time Davey calls the police, the body has vanished and everyone thinks Davey is crazy.
Now I forgot to mention that Jack Flack appears to Davey and talks to him. A black detective [who you would recognize from a million things] bring Davey home and has a talk with Davey’s Dad, played by Dabney in full stache, telling dad to get the kid “some help.” Jack appears at Davey’s side and tells him that in their mission is “No detectives, no dads. Just you and me.” Now, from this I was expecting that Davey’s real dad would be stern and distant, but he’s actually quite warm and affectionate, it’s just that he won’t believe Davey’s wild tales and won’t play video games with him. Plus, Davey’s mom just died, and they’re both grieving. Davie asks him to watch him play the top secret Cloak and Dagger game, which he does through two levels before telling the boy to turn it off. Dad takes his other games away and says he’s going to call the psychologist in the morning, while Davie implores him to “Just play one with me sometime.” You see, that’s the problem: parents don’t play video games with their kids.
Now, it’s fairly obvious that Davie yearns for his father to be this more macho and dashing character that he could be buddies with [although with his sensitive full-stache Dabney in his Air Force uniform as his dad, I would say he’s not doing so bad]. And perhaps some of those gay viewers conversant with the mythology surrounding the “Daddy” type will find a lot of double-meanings in the text here, not least of which after Davie receives a menacing phone call, then flat-out asks to sleep with his dad. Dad slowly peels off his uniform shirt, then lets the boy take to his bed. Am I watching Handjobs: The Motion Picture?
The next day we learn that Dad [once again in full uniform with hot cap] is going to leave 10-year-old Davie alone all day and all night, which seems like a lot of time unattended. He calls Kim, who is hangin’ with her mother. I got a huge guffaw when Kim’s Mom made the slightest mention of Davey’s Dad, and little 8yo Kim responded immediately with “Forget it. He’s not your type.” After some more hugger-mugger with the Mustache Man [in form-fitting light gray sweatsuit], Davie goes to visit Morris, who takes the cartridge apart and sees an extra microchip inside. You have to love the whole concept that an audience in 1984 would be snowed by such techno-talk as “This could be used to store information! Input… Output…” Morris looks like what would result if Fozzie Bear were fused at the genetic level with a rumpled flannel shirt from the bottom of a two-month old laundry pile [in a humid environment], so it was a shock to find out that he is played by William Forsythe! Anyway, Davie encounters Jack Flack out in the store, who encourages him to steal a regular cassette of Cloak and Dagger and offer it to the bad guys in exchange for Kim, whom they have abducted. The surprising violence toward children continues as the thugs threaten to “rip her in two.” Davie gives them the game cartridge in exchange for Kim, who the thugs are now dangling over a precipice! The two kids finally get away, via the old device that they run to a public bus which slams its doors in the face of the villains running up just behind them and takes off. I believe that anyone who has ever taken any form of public transportation can see through this device. Davie jumps off the bus, leaving Kim on, and a few seconds later the thugs are actually shooting at our young hero! Things have changed.
Anyway, so Morris plays the game past the 29th level or whatever, and suddenly the screen goes all top secret and shit and we see these plans for some jet fighter or something. Then the door behind him opens and these guys come in and shoot him. Now, according to the IMDb, the deal is that the filmmakers went to Atari for a video game to fit in the film, and Atari had a game in development called "Agent X" [Jack Flack's espionage name in the film], which they tweaked and renamed Cloak & Dagger. They didn't have it ready for the 5200 by the time of filming, but they did have an arcade version, so what you're seeing in the movie is an Atari 2600 cartridge with a Cloak and Dagger label on it, and on the screen you're seeing the arcade version. Then the video game bubble burst and Atari was never sold, so Cloak and Dagger never saw release as a 5200 game as portrayed in the film.
Anyway, meanwhile the two thugs have pursued Davey to this place that gives boat rides, which is the sequence where the man-candy aspect of this film reaches its apex, as you might be able to glean from the photo above. Speaking of that, the hot thug with the mustache IS indeed "Mustache Man" from Looker, Tom Rossovich, who used to be a pro football player. This type of guy pretty much IS the template for Ron Burgundy from Anchorman. There is supposed to be some suspense as we wonder if they're finally going to get on the boat [the boat employee with the stache and aviator glasses ain't that bad, either], then there's this musical chairs garbage, until Mustache Man jumps up and yells "FIRE!" although it's a tiny boat and there is OBVIOUSLY, OBVIOUSLY no fire. Regardless, the populous panics, the boat crashes, Davey gets out, then the boat with the villains continues on its boat trip as though nothing ever happened! I don't get it. I forgot to mention that on the boat suddenly these friendly grandparents appeared, who just happened to notice that Davey was in trouble, and for a while it looks like he's going to take off with them, but no.
SPOILERS > > >
So then Jack Flack appears again and encourages Davey to jaywalk across a busy highway, then to get into a car trunk with Morris' corpse. If any of this is not making sense, it's because I can't really remember how it all fits together, either. There's this whole scene at the Alamo [this is taking place in Texas], then the grandparents show up again and essentially kidnap Davey, although it seems like they're helping him. It's a little scary, and then—it does turn out that they're evil! In fact, they're the people BEHIND the whole operation! Evil grandparents!
Okay, so he contacts Kim on his walkie-talkie, and tells her—this 8-year-old—to go to the airport at midnight. She's on her way, but doesn't know that there's a bomb in her walkie-talkie! Then there's this whole parking garage chase, with Davey driving. There was one cute exchange I hoped would be more like things to come when Davey asks Jack "How do you drive this thing?" and Jack responds "I don't know—this is a real car." Anyway, in here the hot Mustache Man dies in a van crash—and my interest in this movie drops 75%. Jack tells Davey to pick up the gun, but that's where Davey draws the line!
There's a brief insert where we see Dad getting a call from Kim's mom and seeing something on the news—and suddenly he knows that Davey was RIGHT! Oh, WHY do adults never believe their kids? If only they would take the time to play video games with them…
Back with Davey, there is a brief rat murder, and Jack is still hammering at Davey to pick up the gun and KILL! Davey picks up the gun, but won't use it. The villain, slowly approaching, tells Davey that he could "turn him into shredded meat in about three seconds," [mmm, then we could make a burrito] and a second later, describes shooting out the boy's kneecaps. Uh, isn't there some rule about verbal threats of violence to children or something? It's a little bizarre. Now here is where we are gonna start to have some HARD CORE scenes of rudimentary child psychology, so keep up—or get out. The villain is approaching, but Davey won't shoot, so Jack—who, keep in mind, is just a figment of Davey's imagination—goes to the corner and does a little dance. The villain sees Davey looking over there, and shoots in that direction. Davey thinks he has killed Jack, and this causes Davey to shoot the bad guy! Our 10-year-old hero just killed someone! Then Davey sees that Jack tricked him into shooting, and he throws down his Jack Flack action figure and steps on it! Then Jack starts to give the old speech about the sad old toy who gets forgotten when the little boy grows up, boo hoo—and you want to say "You know, Jack, toys are DEAD."—then Jack suddenly starts bleeding and dies! Our little Davey is growing up and putting aside childish things.
Can you see where this is going? Of course you can, and it hits every single one of the expected marks along the way. After Davey starts approaching some random adult men at some roadside hangout a few minutes before midnight—this kid is really asking for it, no?—he gets a ride to the airport, where the grandparents are about to board their flight. Davey causes a disruption, and rather than the police to just come to their senses and send the crazy kid away—as surely would have happened, ending our movie—the grandpa grabs the security guard's gun and boards his plane! His commercial flight that is just about ready to leave, and yet three seconds later has no passengers on it. I love the concept that you're somehow going to make a "getaway" on a commercial flight, and that you can just decide to hijack it at the last minute—especially with no passengers! None of it makes a lick of sense. Anyway, Dad—who as you recall, is always wearing uniform shirts, like a good Dad—slips onto the plane pretending to be the pilot. The villains realize that the bomb is at the back of the plane, which requires them all to go back there and LOOK at it, letting Dad drop Davey out of the windows of the 747's cabin [which OPEN?] and drop him—what 25, 30 feet?—to the tarmac.
The plane recedes in the distance and explodes. Davey is all traumatized that his daddy is now nothing but a fine vapor mist and some far-flung viscera, but wait, what's this? A man's silhouette walking toward him from the flames! At first it seems to have a beret on it, like Jack Flack, then it seems to have normal Dabney-hair, like Dad! I TOLD you to prepare for some serious first-year psychology action. Sure enough, it's DAD! You see, the fantasy image of the virile hero and the reality of his mundane real dad [actually a ludicrously ideal father from the start] have MERGED in Davey's warped mind, and now they're going to live happily ever after, as evidenced by Davey's last line: "I don't need him anymore, I've got YOU, Dad!" Then they totally start making out.
< < < SPOILERS END
Oh dear. Well, you know, this movie should appeal to me more than it does, given my own yearning for a strong father while growing up [I wanted Richard Hatch from the first Battlestar Galactica to be my dad]—or maybe that's exactly why I see how much further it could have gone, but the fact is that it starts to wander off the rails early on and then just get bizarre. First of all, the way Davey is presented, he is not just an imaginative boy, but is gravely mentally ill. This is not just some phase he'll grow out of, he needs help, and his Dad has every right to think he's a nutjob. Secondly, I was sure that Dad here would be a tyrant, necessitating the need to create some alternate imaginary father, but was surprised to find that he is the ideal father—sensitive and affectionate and understanding—not to mention the mustache and uniform. So this also makes us question what little Davey's PROBLEM is. So Dad won't play your idiotic video games with you, brat? That's because THEY'RE STUPID. Then there's all the violence directed toward the children, and all the NASTY verbal threats to these under-12 kids, and the fact that Davey shoots a man! And then there's the reality that Davey's imaginary adult is telling him to shoplift, run out into traffic, and kill a man! Actually, I sort of liked that part, but thought the movie could have shaped it a lot better. And then little 8yo Kim is taking off to the airport at midnight? Not all of these things are problems, but when you try to cram them all into one movie together, it just starts to lose any shape it might have had.
Still, it has minor strengths. For one, it is a good idea to make Dad better in real life than in fantasy, which helps it work when the final transference of affections takes place. Next, we get some real dramatic acting out of Dabney here, which I didn't expect—he's usually portrayed as solely a comic actor. And he's not bad. And finally, there's Mustache Man, and a fairly good amount of him. That's reason enough to watch right there.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
There's really no reason to, unless you're a video-game addict raised during the 80s and have lingering father issues.
