BLUE THUNDER

   Film (1983). Rastar/Gordon Carroll Productions. Dir John BADHAM, starring Roy Scheider, Warren Oates, Candy Clark, Daniel Stern, Malcolm McDowell. Screenplay Dan O'Bannon, Don Jakoby. 110 mins. Colour.

   Borderline sf set in a very NEAR FUTURE Los Angeles, BT tells the story of Murphy (Scheider), a helicopter-based police officer, asked to try out a new supercopter: it can see through walls, fire missiles, fly at 200 knots and hear conversations from far away. Murphy gradually unravels a government conspiracy to create rioting among Blacks and Chicanos as a justification for the introduction of new, draconian police methods of surveillance and riot control. The post-Watergate, post-Vietnam PARANOIA of the plot is rather unconvincing, in part because of McDowell's overacting as a right-wing extremist, and there is much moral confusion between the overt theme - the dangers of using new TECHNOLOGY as an instrument of oppression - and the subtext, which says that this same technology is exciting and beautiful. BT is well made, suspenseful and meretricious, and owes altogether too much to FIREFOX. Columbia TV produced a disappointing tv series of the same title, Blue Thunder, starring James Farentino, which ran briefly for 11 episodes in 1984; in it the same supercopter becomes merely a useful aid for stereotypical police work.

   PN

   See also: CINEMA.