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When a movie is made in USA (especially not for television), people are expecting a movie at the Hollywood level. That's why when that movie can not be at this level, it will be considered worthless. This would happened for the movie "Adventures in spying" too. If you pay attention to acting or directing and then you compare this with famous Hollywood movies, of course you will be disappointed. This is only an average fun adventure and nothing more. Maybe you can find some plot holes too, but this movie is supposed to be not serious and that's the reason for saying that any plot holes are not important. Adventure genre films in Hollywood are mix up with other geners like action, epic, comedy, drama and also fantasy, and for that reason the real nature of the adventure genre is forgotten. This movie does not very well succeed in portraying the adventure genre, but the mood of this genre can be seen there, even though in incomplete ways but at least it's close to that. As I mentioned above, if this movie were made in another country, probably it wouldn't be ignored as it now is.

I almost never review movies like this since, despite its PG-13 rating, this is definitely a kid's movie. But it is actually a very weird and subversive kid's movie, not so much in the story-line as in the casting. A layabout teenager and his dim-witted friend "Shoup" are enlisted to take over his workaholic little brother's paper route. While delivering the papers, they run across a man who the protagonist recognizes as a notorious drug dealer who is believed to be dead. Nobody believes him though so the movie turns into a juvenile version of "Rear Window" as the hero tries to get evidence to prove it.

There are two main points of interest to this movie. The first is the presence of actress Jill Schoelen. Schoelen was a very appealing young actress in the late 80's and early 90's who appeared in a string of superior horror movies--"The Stepfather", "Cutting Class", "Popcorn", and "When a Stranger Calls Back". Unfortunately, whenever she stepped out of the horror genre she was usually relegated to much more bland "love interest" roles like the one she plays here. She may as well have been credited as "set decoration" in this particular movie.

But the movie also features in the role of the drug dealer, G. Gordon Liddy. Yes, THE G. Gordon Liddy--the former Watergate conspirator who once tried to arrange to have a hit put on himself (worried, I guess, that he couldn't keep his own mouth shut). In the 90's Liddy had a brief career as a right-wing radio talk-show host and he got in trouble for advising his listeners how to shoot federal agents in the head (this was right before the Oklahoma City bombing). I still like him better than Rush Limbaugh though, and if this movie is any indication, he should have had some future in acting. In any event, it was an inspired bit of casting putting this nut-job ex-CIA lawman in the role of a notorious drug dealer. This isn't a great movie, of course, but it's currently available on VHS on Amazon for .99 (cheaper than blank tape!). See it for G. Gordon and Jill.