Covert One: The Hades Factor

While in a retrieve operation of a virus in Berlin, the Covert One agent Rachel Russell (Mira Sorvino) is double-crossed by two dirty agents; she kills them and escapes, trying to find a hiding place and someone to trust to protect the vials. Meanwhile, the former Covert One agent Dr. Jon Smith (Stephen Dorff) is also in Berlin with his beloved fiancée Sophie Amsden (Sophie Myles) participating in a congress. When three persons die with bleeding, the doctors disclose a Hades virus outbreak, an extreme rare Ebola variant. Jon and Sophie return to the USA to research a cure, and Jon discovers a huge combination of bio-terrorism and conspiracy.

"Covert One: The Hades Factor" is a long full of action thriller with conspiracy, terrorism, corruption and betrayal. The complex story is very well-developed along 165 minutes running time and very well acted. Mira Sorvino has specialized in the role of detective or agent, following brilliantly the steps of her father. Stephen Dorff is also excellent and the gorgeous Sophie Myles of "Tristan + Isolde" has a short but effective participation. The conclusion is not predictable but has nor surprised me. In the end, it is a story about the good old-fashioned American capitalism in times of terrorism and intolerance. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): 'O Fator Hades" ("The Hades Factor")

Lt. Smith (Dorff) is a former member of Covert One a government spy agency. Smith is engaged to Dr. Amsden (Myles) both having worked on virus outbreaks in the past and present. When a hemorrhagic virus named Hades, first seen during the Soviet Afghan war, starts to pop up in the USA, the government tries to hide the potential threat while investigating where it came from and race to create a cure. Terrorists are involved in this action thriller, and infiltrate far easier than one would imagine. Rachel (Sorvino) a renegade Covert One operative and everyone she comes in contact with dies. As Covert One tries to untangle the web to nab all those involved, it becomes clear that the origin of this plot is a old enemy. A sad thing is that it reinforced negative racial and cultural stereotypes. But it was on par with B+ or A- movies.

Great literature its not, but Robert Ludlum is hard to beat as a writer of suspense thrillers and COVERT ONE: THE HADES FACTOR is no exception. Writing the screenplay with Ludlum is Elwood Reid and together they have created a very fast moving tale of the threats of bio-terrorism, found in Mick Jackson a perfect match for a director, and gathered an exciting cast to make this 160 minute made-for-television movie fly by at tremendous speed.

The premise of the film involves the worst of all 'weapons of mass destruction' - biological warfare - and here the topic is dealt with in a fascinating manner that pulls the US Government into the fold as implicated in the feasibility of such warfare. Not possible? Well, watch the film and make up your own mind.

Stephen Dorff plays Jon Smith, a one time covert agent for the White House, who becomes ensnarled in a plot to release the Hades Virus (a hemorrhagic lethal variant of the Ebola virus) to destroy the US. Smith's girlfriend Dr. Amsden (Sofia Myles) works for the government in the department that watches for measures just such as this. When the plot to sell the virus (is it possibly a virus known to the US government as the Scimitar project?) falls into the hands of an agent Rachel Russell (Mira Sorvino), the confusion of who is working for whom unfolds and all manner of agents and FBI, CIA, etc agents tumble around the President (Anjelica Huston) trying to identify the true culprits and the race to stop the dissemination of the deadly virus. In the many roles of varying consequence are actors Blair Underwood, Danny Huston, Colm Meaney, Josh Hopkins, etc.

The film is not without its gruesome elements: what depiction of bio-terrorism could avoid that? But the pace and the action sequences and the many locations of the film make the story propel along at a fascinating pace and the actors hold their own despite some predictable moments. Though this obviously is a fiction novel and a good one at that, there is a degree of truth in all fiction and any time writers and artists can help us understand possibilities, we are the better informed for it. Recommended viewing.

In part one of this CBS miniseries, three people become violently ill in different locations--one is a family man (and, we learn later, a marine) outside Camp Pendleton in southern California, one is a waitress in a Seattle diner, and a prisoner held at Guantanamo in Cuba.

Col. Jonathan Smith, formerly of Covert One, and his beautiful fiancée Dr. Sophie Amsden are called into action. It seems these people have a terrible disease which can be spread from person to person, and thousands could die if a cure cannot be found. The United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) must find answers. At one point, we learn that 90 percent of those who get the virus die. And a lot of people are getting the virus.

Meanwhile, in Berlin, Rachel, a member of the Covert One team, is dealing with Chechens who have the deadly virus in tiny containers. Money changes hands in the basement of a dance club, in an office from which dancers can be seen through a glass ceiling. Rachel changes her appearance several times as she runs from those who might be out to get her, while at the same time searching for others who can help. In Paris, she finds a scientist who is familiar with the Afghanistan situation--that is where several marines who got sick were serving.

The second half focuses more on the search for information, and for a cure for the virus. No one sick is shown except for those who make direct contact with terrorists or government investigators. Though we hear the death toll rises from less than 1000, as the second installment begins, to 3000, with panic taking place at overburdened hospitals (we never see this either). And terrorists have the virus, and big plans to disperse it. Some people are trusted who shouldn't be (and vice versa), and unexpected plot twists keep showing up.

I had trouble following what was going on, but brief black-and-white flashbacks were shown in many cases to remind us who certain people were or why something was important. And seeing the people who were sick was really hard to watch. One particularly effective scene showed one marine being asked questions in the hospital. He came through admirably in spite of his obvious suffering.

As a spy thriller this does eventually succeed. There are lots of good acting performances, and I especially should single out Anjelica Huston as a U.S. President obviously not elected for her looks, and Colm Meaney as Peter, who plays a major role in the Afghanistan investigation. The tension level stays high, with lots of action toward the end.

If you enjoyed the Dustin Hoffman movie Outbreak, the TV series 24 and X-Files and the HBO/BBC series TheCell, and wondered what would happen if you mixed them altogether, then this is the result.

It trundles along at the usual pace of all the above, with Stephen Dorff doing his best Jack Bauer impersonation, in both looks and personality. Naturally the love of his live is offed fairly early on and that sets up the lone-agent working to recover the truth. Very 24'esque.

The X-Files element is all the government conspiracies that are woven into the plot and that makes for more distraction than anything else. The story is a good one on its own merit, no need to keep mixing in nonsense that really only serves to bog down the movie.

But on the whole it is a good watch.