Sotto stretta protezione

This movie has it all - fast cars, foot chases, girls in bikinis- total guy movie. I give it two thumbs up. I had as much fun watching this movie as working on it! In the "pool party" scene, those are my legs you see walking up the little brick steps. Have been wondering for years if the movie was in circulation, and how I could see it again or buy it.

The film has a decent enough plot which keeps concentration and is in places interesting and exciting, being a TV film. The reasons behind the main plot is slightly disappointing and the film fails to deliver at intervals, but overall it is a reasonably enjoyable TV movie.

Jason Bateman stars in this made for TV film about a rock and rolling kid who goes off to a music camp. While gone Bateman's dead Tom Skerritt who works for a big investment house in San Francisco turns federal witness against his employer who has been laundering mob money for decades. Tom Skerritt and the rest of the family go into witness protection, but Bateman who has run away from the long haired music in the old fashioned sense at the music camp is in the winds.

When he gets home he finds a house stripped bare and no one knows where the family is. But both the Justice Department in the person of John Glover and a mob hit man Jack Wagner are both after him. Bateman does not know who friend or foe is, so he has to keep a Moving Target.

It was interesting to see Glover as a good guy for once and soap opera hunk Jake Wagner is a truly terrifying amoral hit man. As a movie Moving Target obeys the first rule of movie making, it moves.

Bateman is good also as a truly clever and bright kid, which should make one fear for the security of witness protection.

Fans of the above named players should like this.

It's not a feature film, it's a solid TV so see it that way.

And it's pretty good. Bateman was great, it seemed pretty real.

Very not perfect- no way the Feds would have one agent with this kid to not have attention- that's silly.

Really, it does fall apart in the third act, like so many movies.

But in this case, as a TV movie it works, especially when the lead calls the Feds for help. It does feel like infuriating red tape in a crazy urgent situation.

What this movie does well, it does REALLY well.

The third act thing where the Big Bad does moronic things- yes, that's here in glorious 80's stupid, but hey, it's an 80's flick, ;).

By today's standards, this would be a decent feature.

It's solid and very engaging. Bateman is solid as is Skerrit. It won't stand out as the best of the 80's as a feature, but it does stand out as a strong lesser offering.

All these kids feel very real.

It's not perfect, of course. Jason Bateman does feel a bit old for the rebellious self centered kid he is playing. But, whatever, yes it isn't perfect, but it gets far more right than it gets wrong. The kids he deals with do feel very real, even the one with obvious moral shortcomings. Obvious as an adult, but kids as convincing kids. And this obvious kid with obvious kid failings pays a very real price, which he certainly as a dumb kid does not deserve.