From the promotional poster, Breach of Conduct looks like a pretty stupid movie. But this low budget made-for-tv thriller directed by Tim Matheson turned out to be better than I had anticipated.
The story is that of a psychotic military commander, Andrew Case (Peter Coyote) who runs a pretty autocratic military base. He is an eerie fellow, possibly schizophrenic. If above all else, he values being in charge no matter what.
He's got this scam going, where he takes the officer's wives out to this bunker in order to fullfill his unusual sexual fantasies. It looks like everyone who knew about it, went along with it. And Helen Lutz (Courtney Thorne-Smith), the new wife on the base, should not be mistakened for the bubbly, helpless type. Because she's about to risk her life to try to stop Case's crimes, which proves to be quite a dangerous task when no one is willing to challenge Case for the sake of their own careers (and lives) even though they may believe Lutz.
The movie presents itself in a rather tricky fashion for the viewer. I forgot that I was watching a thriller when, in the introduction, you just see this panicked housewife, Lutz, trying to locate her husband on the base as well as get herself settled in the strange, new town (okay, so yeah, that's the beginnings of a thriller--the suspicious eerieness of the visitors who approach Lutz). And when Lutz is seduced by Case, or however you want to describe it, it looks like just a dreamy love story and one movie that could follow that route. But it doesn't, and once Case's sick mentality is revealed to Lutz, the fun begins.
It is not the most wonderful thriller, and does borrow on some formula, but for a low budget made-for-tv thriller, it does the job.
