BETRAYED, a 1988 hybrid of political & crime suspenser wed to a fanciful love story, self-owns from its title onward, with pertinent subject matter and two compelling lead actors drawing interest and attention, only to then mow down likelihood and logic like ripe corn before a harvester. The seeming ace card was director Costa-Gavras, decorated for acumen and daring with Z, State Of Siege and Missing. The joker in the deck was coat-turning screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who dealt Flashdance, Sliver, Jade and Showgirls. *

America. The Midwest. Amber waves of seething discontent. Doing seasonal itinerant work driving a wheat harvester, ‘Katie Phillips’ (Debra Winger) wins the attention of widowed farmer ‘Gary Simmons’ (Tom Berenger), his young children, mother and circle of friends. Gary’s attention turns to affection, which Katie finds herself responding to. What Gary and his wholesome-as-Wheaties compatriots don’t know is that Katie is really ‘Catherine Weaver’, an undercover FBI agent assigned to investigate possible links to the murder of a prominent radio d.j. in Denver. When a “hunting trip” that Gary urges Katie to be part of turns horrible, Catherine wants out, but her abrasive supervisor ‘Mike Carnes’ (John Heard) demands she infiltrate further. Mike not just zealous, but jealous as well, Catherine having spurned him as a bed sharer. Meantime, as Katie, Catherine meets other ‘foot soldiers’ in the larger web of extremists aiming to ‘make America (insert word) again’. With blood.

Certainly the idea (burrowing into the self-righteous rot beneath the flags, jeans and crosses) was valid, but the romantic element is a fib too far, especially after the literally triggered event that reveals the real Gary to the repelled Katie/spy Catherine. As B-flick fodder it could squeeze under the “it’s a movie, ignore reality” threshold used by countless movies in every genre. But since the show posits as something more serious, it falls apart faster than the philosophical arguments that moronic racists, blind religious zealots and pot-bellied, tat-smeared wanna-be Seals froth out when they try to articulate how much they hate most of the country they say they love.

Cost: $19,000,000. Gross: $25,800,000. Box office ranking in 1988: 39th.

With John Mahoney (overdoing hee-haw folksiness a bit), Ted Levine (effective bad news as one of Gary’s crowd who suspects outsider Katie), Maria Valdez, Betsy Blair (65, 33 years and world away from Marty), David Clennon (politician rabble rouser), Jeffrey DeMunn, Albert Hall, Richard Libertini and Brian Bosak. 127 minutes.

* Onward Christian Slaughterers—once upon a time, the FBI (post-Hoover) actually went after genuine terrorists; the background template for the script came from the activities of a White Supremacist organization called The Order. Among their deeds, on June 18, 1984 these neo-Nazis murdered radio host Alan Berg. That killing saw cine-coverage in Eric Bogosian’s/Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio, also released in 1988. Only 1/7th as many people went: no cross-beliefs love story or fast-drawing Feds to the rescue.  The Order, from 2024, also dealt with the Berg murder and investigation.

Costa-Gavras: “If a nation falls into these kinds of hands, that kind of ideology, it IS the death of a nation. ‘No doubt.”  Spoken by the director four decades before the country’s 250th birthday, tragically the dire prognosis has legs, long and strong, given that democracy’s shadow assassins have boiled out of the woods and into blatant display. Wild guess who Joe Eszterhas voted for. Uh-huh.

Creatures walking among us—-American History X (hardcase stuff), Imperium (little-known, recommended),  Black KkKlansman (overpraised, with the bad guys ironically more interesting and believably sketched than the heroes), Green Room (out & out thriller).

More than a few people listened to Crosby, Stills & Nash & Young and heard something else