La Main droite du diable

What do you get when you team up the director of MISSING and Z and the writer of SHOWGIRLS and FLASHDANCE? A political film where the FBI is portrayed as even less honorable than the Klansmen and neo-Nazis they're trying to fight, and the female lead (well played by Debra Winger) is a victim of both sides, valuable to the FBI only because of her sex appeal, and unable to trust anyone except her small stepdaughter. That said, BETRAYED is an interesting, very watchable and disturbingly credible movie with some powerful moments, and the cast (particularly Berenger, Winger and the juveniles) give excellent performances.

I've seen Betrayed for three times now, and each time it just gets better and better.

Tom Berenger is excellent as Gary Simmons. He is perfect for the role, that requires in-depth understanding about love and hate. This man loves his family dearly and is extremely loyal to things he believes to be justified, and at the same time he is capable of doing most savage deeds towards other people he think are sub-human. Simmons is so cold and yet such a nice man at the same time it makes my blood freeze in my veins.

Also Debra Winger is great as Katie Phillips. She finds herself falling in love with this man and then realizes that everything is not so perfect she thought it was. Her disappointment is almost palpable. I highly recommend this movie to all, who wonder with amazement the dark sides of human nature.

This was one of those mythological films that I speak so highly of in other reviews. This was a gem hidden in the darkness. Looking at the cover, you would never guess that this would be such a powerhouse of a film, but let me be the first to say that it was.

Berenger and Winger are amazing in their roles. Winger giving the best performance that I have ever seen her do, while Berenger takes a character riddled with evil and makes him human. When I first began this film, I was expecting a very true Hollywood production. One that would be dark at first, but all of the sudden create this happy world at the end. This film did nothing close to that. What was amazing about this film was that it let the audience make it's own decisions. Not much was handed to you on a silver platter.

Upon the first ten minutes of this film, you would probably assume that it was a love story. It is anything BUT a love story. It is a crime/thriller/drama film, and quite possibly one of the strongest that I have seen in some time. There are some scenes in this film that I couldn't believe I was watching. The sheer brilliance of the director left me wondering if this film was really made in 1988. The cinematography was outstanding. There is one scene that stands out the most in my mind. After Berenger tries to "put down" his dying horse, he can't pull himself to shoot a living creature, so he has his side-kick do it. After it is done, he runs out into the rain behind Berenger wrapped in a plastic tarp. The image here is of the devil riding close behind. It is so vivid and so beautifully done that you can't help to wonder what that may represent. There are a couple of scenes very similar to this as well.

Now, this isn't a film without some small flaws. The young girl was annoying. Perhaps I find young children in these types of films always to be annoying, but in this case it was especially bad. Also, there were some dopey scenes to this film. There were some parts that I felt I was the director of the film watching some bad lines happen between Berenger and Winger ... but it was only a couple.

Betrayed ends like an open-ended question. It tells you that justice has been served, but not eliminated. It does not paint a pretty picture of our society. Be prepared if you see this for some embarrassing, yet disturbing images of ethnic hatred in this film. Some scenes that you will not believe ever happens in our country, but in the back of your mind you know certain evils do exist. But then also be prepared to see John Mahoney (of Say Anything... fame) do his best work ever. The war took his son, the bank took his land, why shouldn't he fight in this battle of supremacy? Dark and impressive ... WOW, I am lucky to have found this one.

Grade: ***** out of *****

At a crucial moment in the movie, the racist militia group that is the focus of the movie robs a bank, and one of their own are killed by an FBI agent. When asked shortly thereafter how he felt about the killing, the agent says that it was no more than wiping dirt off of his shoe. We often like to think of those people who engage in hatred and violence as being completely "unhuman". We want to believe that they are without emotions, without humanity, without integrity and mostly without love. In short, we want to believe that those with monstrous attitudes are only monsters and nothing else. And it is not so, which is I think the point of "Betrayed". People who adhere to what mainstream society judges as dangerous prejudices are in fact much more complex and often have more of humanity than we would like to believe.

The story centers around two characters: Gary Simmons, played with much tact and depth by Tom Berenger, a leader of a local white supremacist militia group, and Catherine Weaver, alias Katie Phillips (played with complete believability and subtleness by Debra Winger), the FBI Agent who infiltrates the group. Her goal: to link Simmons and his group with the slaying of a leftist shock-jock who is slain at the beginning of the film, an incident which closely resembles the real-life assassination of Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg, a leftist personality known for hanging up on callers and other on-the-air rudeness. (In real life he was the most popular and simultaneously the most hated radio host in his geographic area.) The FBI also wants to undercover any future plans the group may be concocting that might involve assassinating celebrities and/or politicians.

At first, Phillips believes the FBI have targeted the wrong people since despite their use of the N-word and occasional racist jokes, they appear to be peaceful friendly and neighborly, they appear to respect women, and they often give a helping hand to those in need. Gary Simmons is a loyal father, a model citizen who speaks his mind, a hard-worker, and a straight-shooter. He always tries to do the right thing. He is low key and doesn't speak often about his political views. And Phillips also finds herself quite taken with his two beautiful children who are innocent while simultaneously being indoctrinated with prejudice that may manifest itself later as hate and violence. To add to the confusion, Phillips finds herself falling for Simmons, wanting to believe that he is the wrong man.

But as Phillips sinks deeper into the family and friends of those around Simmons, she learns she is very wrong. After Simmons takes her "hunting", a deadly game in which a captured African-American is then hunted by a group of whites like a British Fox Hunt with automatic weapons, she realizes there is more to this group than her initial observations would indicate. Then a camping trip reveals that it is true, that Simmons and his close associates are members of a complex supremacist group with connections all over the country to people who believe that Jews, African-Americans, Gays, and Lesbians, and almost any other non-white ethnic group are intending to exterminate their livelihoods if not their lives. They have rationalized that they have to fight back. And these groups are their targets for not only hatred but for proposed violent engagements.

Phillips' other world is her FBI associates that keep pushing her to stay the course and complete her mission by staying within the family. Unlike her mid-west "family", the FBI team are emotionless, less sympathetic to the traumatic toll the assignment is taking on Phillips, and rather cold about what they are really doing. The government agents have little understanding that despite racists' destructive attitudes, they are real people who love, who grieve, and want happiness. While the FBI wants to put the racists into a convenient stereotypical box, Phillips realizes there is much more to these people than their hate. But she does find that their flawed perception of reality lies within a complex myriad of rationalizations that serve to construct their world-view. They have convinced themselves that only their hate and violence can save them.

The movie becomes a struggle between these two worlds, and at one point, Phillips begins to question which side is the "good" side, and ultimately she must make a choice between the two. The irony is that if we want to "fight" prejudice we can't "fight" the people, as it only fuels the next generation of racists and proves their point. Maybe we can't even fight the attitudes. Maybe we need to love them despite their attitudes and maybe that would foster more love as it appears that hate only breeds more hate regardless of which side we are on.

If you found American History X powerful, check this out. This movie walks the fine line between fiction and reality, in that it starts out with a portrayal of the murder of the Jewish talk show host in Denver, a real life event, by racist extremists. This is a movie that is especially relevant now , with the upsurge of white supremacist groups. The acting is good; the content is chilling and sobering.