Flashpoint (1984 film)

Flashpoint
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	William Tannen
Written by	George LaFountaine (novel) Dennis Shryack and Michael Butler
Starring	Kris Kristofferson Treat Williams Rip Torn Tess Harper
Music by	Tangerine Dream
Production company	HBO Pictures Silver Screen Partners
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date	August 31, 1984 (1984-08-31)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$3,854,833[1]

Flashpoint is a 1984 film starring Kris Kristofferson and Treat Williams. Rip Torn, Jean Smart, Kurtwood Smith, and Tess Harper also co-star. The movie was directed by William Tannen and based on a novel by George LaFountaine. This was the first theatrical film produced by Home Box Office (in association with Silver Screen Partners).^[2] The music score was provided by Tangerine Dream.

Plot

A brief prologue, taking place in 1963 during a heavy thunderstorm at night, depicts a jeep driving through the storm before crashing into a gully in a remote area of the Texan desert.

In 1984, two United States Border Patrol Agents, best friends Bobby Logan and Ernie Wyatt, are tasked by their arrogant & officious boss, Brook, to begin planting motion-detection sensors in their sector at the Federal government's request, something that Wyatt believes will lead to many of the Patrol being forcibly retired and the remaining agents stuck behind computer screens all day.

Logan & Wyatt come across what appears to be a deserted car, it does in fact contain two sleeping telephone operators - Ellen & Doris - from San Antonio, who explain that while trying to take a short cut home the night before they came to grief when they got lost & their car broke down.

The two Border Patrol agents drop the girls off at a motel while their car is being fixed, and start to date the two girls.

Later that morning while Logan is planting a sensor, he discovers the Jeep from the opening prologue buried under earth and sand in the desert. As Logan continues excavating the wrecked vehicle, he discovers the driver's skeleton.

Meanwhile, Wyatt, along with a Sheriff Wells, is in San Antonio attending a severe road accident where a semi truck has collided with a small van smuggling illegal immigrants from Mexico, causing many fatalities. Wyatt & Sheriff Wells suspect that a local businessman, Pedroza, is responsible for smuggling the immigrants, but have no definite proof.

Logan meets Wyatt at the accident and informs him of his discovery in the desert. Together they return to the excavated Jeep, where Logan shows Wyatt an old metal toolbox he found in the vehicle containing $800,000 in unused 10 & 20 dollar bills ($1.9 million today).

On searching the skeletal remains, Wyatt finds a wallet, with a faded drivers licence with the details of a Michael J. Curtis of San Antonio. Also in the wallet is a faded piece of paper with two phone numbers on it. They also find a hunting case containing a high power, telescoped hunting rifle & fishing rods.

Logan suggests that the money is probably from a bank heist in the early 60's and that he and Wyatt use the money to finance their escape from their brutally hard jobs and uncertain futures, while Wyatt is reluctant; they agree to put out the Jeep's license plate information to the Sheriff's department, and ask their telephone operator girlfriends to check out the two phone numbers. They also decide to check and see if indeed, any bank robberies did take place in 1962/63. They re-bury the wrecked Jeep and hide the toolbox with the money & hunting case with the rods & rifle.

They both later visit an elderly prospector who has reported a light aircraft landing up on the nearby mesa twice a week. Logan & Wyatt suspect that this is how a major drug dealer has been smuggling drugs across the border.

Logan & Wyatt meet up with Sheriff Wells in his office in San Antonio, to discuss setting up a surveillance operation on the drug smuggler. Wells tells Logan that he served with his father Matt in the Texas Rangers.

While in the town they take two of the dollar bills to a source Logan trusts and learn the bills are legitimate but somewhat unusual, as many of them were circulated directly from the Federal Reserve in Dallas and are all dated between 1962 and 1963. On checking newspaper records in the town library, Logan can find nothing relating to any bank robberies in 1962/63. He does however pause to read the headlines of 22 November 1963, the day that JFK was assassinated.

When the two friends return to Border Patrol HQ, they discover a Federal agent Carson & his team have arrived, ostensibly to take control of the planned surveillance operation & possible bust of the drug trafficker.

However, Logan quickly dislikes and distrusts Carson, who talks way too much about Logan's heroic Vietnam War service and self-imposed exile from high-level government activities. Logan gets suspicious of Carson's intimate knowledge & questions and asks him; "Who are you, really!" and Carson replies; "I'm a fixer, I fix all kinds of things!" Intimating that in reality he and his team are CIA operatives.

Carson appears to deliberately blow Logan & Wyatt's cover when the team are moving in to arrest the drug smuggler, almost causing the death of Wyatt. Later on, they learn that their unlikable supervisor Brook has been promoted to a desk job in Washington, leaving Carson as temporary head of the Border Patrol HQ.

They discover that the elderly prospector they met earlier has in fact discovered the wrecked Jeep they found & excavated. On returning to the site they find that it is now cordoned off and that Carsons agents & an Army team have taken custody of the Jeep.

They hear from their girlfriends, who tell Logan & Wyatt about the two phone numbers that the girls were asked to check out. One was to someone called Beck in Washington DC, the other was an old, now unused number for the Dallas Police Dept, the girls also inform the men that they passed on the information to two fellow Border Patrol agents , Roget & Lambassino.

They drive to the home of the elderly prospector only to discover that he has been murdered and his home burned to the ground. While there, they discover the tire tracks of the vehicles used by Roget & Lambassino who ironically have both been reported missing. They follow the tracks to an old deserted farm, and there in a derelict barn they find the bodies of their two colleagues - both have been tortured then killed.

Carson and his team attend the scene, who then tells a shocked Logan & Wyatt, "This didn't happen," intimating that the whole thing will be covered up.

Logan is ready to leave town for good, but Carson first sends him on a solo mission to Soledad Mountain to investigate a suspicious vehicle. He also sends Wyatt to another location, telling him that Pedroza is smuggling more people across the border.

When Logan gets to the mountain, he soon finds that it is, in fact, a setup. It seems that Carson is trying to eliminate anyone who had knowledge about the crashed Jeep and the skeleton.

Logan rushes to Wyatt's last known location, but it's too late. He discovers the body of his dead friend, stabbed with Logans hunting knife. He drops to his knees, sobbing for his dead friend.

Soon, Logan heads to the location where he & Wyatt had hidden the money and the hunting case containing the rifle. As he approaches, two gunshots ring out, and Logan falls to the ground, shot in the shoulder. His Green Beret training kicks in and he quickly eludes the shooters. By flanking them by using cover, he comes up behind them and kills two of them in quick succession using his own Winchester rifle. The third shooter is Carson himself, whom Logan shoots through the leg.

Carson limps to Logans Jeep to try and escape, only to find that the keys aren't in the ignition. As Logan approaches Carson he asks him; "Why!?" Carson promptly replies with; "F**k you!" Logan then empties all six rounds of his magnum service revolver into Carson's chest killing him.

Logan returns to the hunting case, opens it up and lifts out the telescoped rifle and shouts out; "WHO WERE YOU!?" To the background noise of rifle shots, and brief flashes of the JFK headlines that Logan read in the San Antonio library. It intimates that Michael J. Curtis was in fact JFK's assassin, and not as history would have you believe, Lee Harvey Oswald.

As Logan kneels there, Sheriff Wells appears and tells Logan not to move. He then berates Logan for finding the wrecked Jeep and reawakening a 20 year old nightmare. He then admits that he was complicit in the Government plot to assassinate JFK, saying that he was to provide the Jeep, and the hunting case for the telescoped rifle and hand over the $800,000 dollars to Curtis, who was then meant to head to Mexico.

Logan looks at Wells, who tells him to take the $800,000 and to go to Mexico. Logan refuses and says he's going back to Border Patrol HQ and tell everything. Wells then informs he can't as Logan has been framed for not only the murder of his close friend Wyatt, but also of his two colleagues Roget & Lambassino.

Once again Wells tells Logan to take the money and go to Mexico and disappear, change his name & change his face. Logan asks Wells what he's going to do and he replies that he's going to do what he should have done years ago and that he's going to buy him some time as the rest of Carsons team will be arriving soon.

Logan loads the toolbox with the money into the back of his Jeep, as he climbs in he looks across at Sheriff Wells and tells him that if he gets the chance, tell them he'll return one day. Wells nods, grins wryly and replies that he will, if he gets the chance.

Logan then drives away towards the Mexican border & an unclear future, leaving Wells staring out across the desert.

Cast

• Kris Kristofferson as Bobby Logan
• Treat Williams as Ernie Wyatt
• Rip Torn as Sheriff Wells
• Kevin Conway as Brook
• Jean Smart as Doris
• Tess Harper as Ellen
• Kurtwood Smith as Carson
• Miguel Ferrer as Roget
• Guy Boyd as Lambasino

Soundtrack

Flashpoint
1984 LP album cover
Soundtrack album by Tangerine Dream
Released	1984
Recorded	1984
Genre	Electronic music
Length	37:07
Label	EMI
Tangerine Dream chronology
Firestarter (1984) Flashpoint (1984) Poland (1984)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
Kerrang!	[4]

Flashpoint is the sixth soundtrack album and twenty-third overall by Tangerine Dream.^[5]

A CD version was released in 1984 on the Heavy Metal label but was soon recalled due to pressing errors that rendered the CD unplayable. The soundtrack was not released on CD again until 1995, making it very rare. The entire album was released as part of the bootleg Mystery Tracks (1993).^[6]

References

External links

• Flashpoint on IMDb
• Flashpoint at Rotten Tomatoes