PROJECT X

   Film (1987). Amercent Films-American Entertainment Partners/20th Century-Fox. Dir Jonathan Kaplan, starring Matthew Broderick, Helen Hunt, Bill Sadler, Johnny Ray McGhee. Screenplay Stanley Weiser, based on a story by Weiser, Lawrence Lasker. 103 mins, cut to 91 mins. Colour.

   A trainee airman (Broderick), in trouble for joyriding, is sent to work in an experimental USAF establishment where chimps are being trained in flying simulators; the sinister premise (gradually uncovered) is that, if successfully taught, they can be used on operations where pilots would be subjected to heavy radiation. Several chimps are deliberately irradiated to death. The young airman, who has bonded with an intelligent chimp that understands sign language, helps foment rebellion, escapes with the chimps, and en passant prevents a nuclear meltdown; of course, the chimps themselves finally save the day - by flying a plane to safety. Wholly absurd, emotionally manipulative and anthropomorphically sentimental, the film is nevertheless very neatly crafted, evoking with real panache, through its jittery, unnerving imagery, all kinds of subtexts that are more intelligent than the plot would suggest.

   PN