Warhead

Originally, "Warhead" was a television movie called "Prisoner in the Middle" (1974). It was somehow released in some theaters in 1977 as "Warhead".

When the movie began, I could quickly tell it was a movie made on the cheap. For example, a CIA operative (David Janssen) is about to parachute into the desert...and they cut away and suddenly he's on the ground gathering up his parachute. Moments later, a school bus is attacked in the desert...and they show they about to attack and then it cuts to the bus suddenly lying on its side...having been blasted. But you see no blast....it's as if the warning "Scene missing here" should be emblazoned across the screen!

The plot involves Palestinians, Israeli soldiers and a lone CIA operative (Janssen) all scrambling to retrieve a lost US Air Force nuke accidentally dropped in the Jordanian desert(???). Why the USA would only send one guy is confusing, that's for sure! The nuke ends up changing hands repeatedly.

So is it any good? Not really. The acting is passable but the film itself lacks energy and interesting characters...and a decent budget. Overall, it just really looks cheap...incredibly cheap! And, it is also not especially entertaining...which is odd considering the subject matter.

So, how does one describe this movie? Well, basically, it's one of those movies where there's this thing that does stuff and the guy needs to get the thing, but there is other stuff and things, so there's, like, a whole bunch of stuff, but it really doesn't amount to much of anything all that interesting. Too vague? How about this: remember the days when they showed old movies in the early hours of the morning for insomniacs instead of infomercials? Well, it's 2:00 AM and this movie comes on and you're sound asleep before 2:30 AM. How many times did I find myself sitting through movies like this at 3:00 AM when I was a kid? Countless, and that is why I kind of like garbage like this--it's like a sort of therapy. But, seriously, you have a nuclear weapon you need disarmed and the best you can do is dump a middle-aged guy in the middle of the desert in civilian gear with no food or water to disarm it? If that sounds dumb, it just keeps going downhill from there. It's a crap movie, but watchable for nostalgia's sake.

Workhorse David Janssen and talented veteran Karin Dor couldn't save this poorly directed and over-scripted B- movie. This was John O'Connor's first and last directorial effort, and was made after a 24 year hiatus from a largely uncredited acting career in B movies of the '40s and '50s. The film introduces cheese in the very first shot - a long pan across some portion of Jerusalem, with teleprompter type running across the bottom of the screen. The teleprompter tells us that an experimental nuclear missile prototype has been lost somewhere in the Jordanian desert. Next, we learn that a despicable terrorist has the missile and has used it to destroy a school bus full of children accompanied by an Israeli army officer (Dor). Following the destruction of the school bus, there is a lengthy, gratuitous shot of dead kids disbursed around the burning bus, mixed with flashbacks of the kids singing on the bus a few moments ago.

6/24/07: Fell asleep less than ten minutes into the film.

Dor is then attached to a military attempt to ferret out the terrorist and the CIA reaches out to munitions expert Janssen, on vacation in Israel, to locate, disarm the missile, and destroy the detonator. The Dodge Valiant-driving CIA agent who brings Janssen into the story has a monotone delivery straight out of B noir and the dialog between him and Jannsen is totally absurd.

6/25/07: Fell asleep.

There is very little to spoil, but I won't bother with the rest of the plot. Suffice to say that Janssen gets played like a ping-pong-ball bouncing from one Middle Eastern Stereotype to another while he tries to accomplish his mission. I finally got through Warhead by starting a little earlier, and still managed to doze off 2 or 3 times during the gun fights and other action scenes. Incidentally, the sound effects also deserve special mention for their profound mediocrity.

The film does not even succeed as a propaganda piece. All of the characters are stereotypes of one kind or another, and only Dor's character really warrants any sympathy. Janssen, an intense and very sensitive actor, really did not give this his best effort, and the pervasive misdirection offered him little help.

6/26/07: Stayed awake (for the most part), but slept like a baby afterward.

Not recommended.

Though this movie was made nearly 30 years ago, its main theme is still very relevant with the current Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East. With the current threat of nuclear warfare in that region, the scenario in this movie could become a reality though we hope that will not happen. What made this movie especially delightful to me was the background music cues. For those of us who are "Rat Patrol" TV series fans, you will quickly recognize that the music used in this movie were taken from the recorded music cues from "The Rat Patrol", music composed by the outstanding TV composer Dominic Frontiere, even though his name is not credited in the end credits. Overall a good movie with plenty of action.

After becoming a David Janssen fan through "The Swiss Conspiracy," I bought a DVD that contains two of David's other movies, "Moon of the Wolf" (I also review it and "The Swiss Conspiracy" on this page) and the subject of this review, "Prisoner in the Middle." Also known as "Warhead," "Prisoner in the Middle" was filmed in 1973 but not released until four years later. Apparently it received only minimal theatrical distribution and now is in public domain. The movie appears to be low budget but overcomes that with clever writing, excellent pacing and exciting actions scenes, plus another strong performance by Janssen.

"Prisoner in the Middle" stars Janssen as U.S. Air Force Col. Anthony Stevens, who, while vacationing in Jerusalem, is summoned to deactivate an American nuclear missile that has accidentally been dropped via parachute into the Jordanian desert.

Stevens finds the missile but before de-activating it, he is captured by a militant Arab group that calls itself the Palestinian Liberation Army. At first, the group's leader, Malouf (played by David Semadar), expresses interest in using the missile to destroy Israel. But upon seeing a red light flashing on the missile, he allows Stevens to de-activate it.

But before Stevens finishes, a group of Israeli soldiers arrive at the scene and begin firing at the Arabs, who retreat. Stevens takes cover during the shoot out and is captured by the Israelis, who don't treat him much better than the Arabs and won't let him de-activate the missile. Meanwhile, the Arabs make plans to attempt to re-gain the missile.

The movie doesn't contain a lot of character development but doesn't need to. It's more about a theme than about characters. And the theme is just as relevant now as it was then. And the movie still does a good job at portraying the lives of Israeli soldiers. In one particularly powerful scene, they are shown praying in a synagogue and from there immediately prepare for battle.

And the point of view of the Arabs isn't ignored. When Stevens tries to convince Malouf to let Stevens de-activate the missile, Stevens tells Malouf to think about Malouf's family. Malouf replies that because of the Jews, he doesn't have a family.

But while "Prisoner in the Middle" is exciting and compelling, it becomes progressively more depressing throughout, all the way until the end. And I'm surprised that it got a PG rating, especially at a time that the PG-13 rating didn't exist. To me, the movie is a pretty obvious R for its intense violence and the implied rape of a captured female Israeli soldier.

For those who can endure, "Prisoner in the Middle" is a very entertaining action drama and a must see for Janssen fans. I give the movie 8/10, the same rating as "Moon of the Wolf." Getting the two movies on one DVD for just $1 is an outstanding value!