Movies watched for The Enemy Within

First, the ones that didn’t make the cut:
MIMIC 2 (2001) is a sequel in which the protagonist of the original is now working as a science teacher, only to discover the super-insects of the first film have now mutated to the point of taking human shape. That angle doesn’t play in enough to qualify for my book, since it’s mostly about just running from the scary insect people rather than wondering Are You One Of Us Or …?
BLOWUP (1966) is the Antonioni film in which Anthony Hemmings’ discovery he’s photographed a murder almost jars him out of his aimless lifestyle. Works slightly better on rewatching than it did the first time, but it’s still more about style than substance.
ADVENTURES OF THE FLYING CADETS (1943) is a Boys Own-style serial in which four plucky pilot trainees are framed for murder by the Nazi assassin the Black Hangman (regrettably much more mundane than the name sounds) and forced to go on the lam to stop him. The descriptions I had of this made it sound like it was just possibly grist for my mill, but no, there is little of paranoia and not much of a Fifth Column, so I gave up about a third of the way through.
THE GROUNDSTAR CONSPIRACY (1972) is a good thriller in which George Peppard refuses to let double-agent Michael Sarrazin’s amnesia stop him from learning who Sarrazin worked for when he blew up a top-secret lab. Not paranoid enough for the book (the focus is on Sarrazin putting himself back together with help from Christine Belford) but good fun with Peppard as the man who suspects everyone as naturally as he breathes.
MURDER AT 1600 (1997) is a so-so thriller wherein homicide detective Wesley Snipes is assigned to investigate a White House staffer’s murder only to discover that it points right at First Son-or does it? Like SHADOW CONSPIRACY and THE SENTINEL this focuses more on replacing the president with an ambitious rival than a full Fifth Column scheme, so it doesn’t make the cut; with Diane Lane and Dennis Miller as Snipes’ sidekicks, and Daniel Benzali and Alan Alda as White House power players.
S*P*Y*S (1974) stars Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould as respectively realist and idealist spies forced to team up when the KGB claims their heads in return for two of its own agents (“It’s the bilateral accord of 1972.”). Despite the obvious effort to cash-in on M*A*S*H, this is just recycled Bond-parody material that could have been made 10 years earlier.
Now the one that did:
CIVIC DUTY (2006) stars Peter Krause as an unemployed accountant who becomes increasingly obsessed with the Arab Terrorist Menace but can’t convince anyone that the Middle-Eastern grad student next door is obviously plotting something horrible. This works well, though the ending leaves me wondering if they’re trying to have it both ways or should be a sign as to how far Krause has gone off into delusion-land.

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Filed under Movies, Screen Enemies of the American Way

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