La Main droite du diable

****SPOILERS**** Shocking disturbing but at the same time penetrating film by director Costa-Garvras about terror in Americas heartland spilling over into the big city, Chicago. A popular but controversial Jewish talk show host Sam Kraus, Richard Libertini, gets gunned down by a group of white separatists in the garage of his apartment building the killers leave their calling card on the murder scene Z.O.G : Zionist occupied government. A phrase that the separatists use to refer to the US government all throughout the movie.

The FBI in trying to find and arrest those who perpetrated the crime send agent Cathy Phillips/ Kathy Weaver, Debra Winger, undercover to the farm land in the area where they think that the killers come from. Due to the very high anti-government sentiment there with farmers in danger of losing their land. It turns out that Agent Phillips should have been the last person for the FBI to put on a case like that due to her very sad home and family life. Phillips lost her parents at a very young age and had no family her entire life but her employer the FBI which was anything but loving and personal to her.

In the farm land and being undercover as Cathy Weaver she falls in love and lives with murder suspect Gary Simmons, Tom Berenger, and his family. Simmons is a widower with children who's mother also lives with him that has Cathy/Katie for the first time in her life have the family that she always longed for. This very fact is what Cathy says is "Screwing up her loyalties" to the government and FBI that she works for.Cathy/Katie desperately wants to be taken off the case before she betrays the man, Gary, as well as the family that she loves. Still the FBI refuses to do so because Cathy's in too deep and is too close to break the case on the Kraus killing.

Gary is also very honest with Cathy/Katie by telling her about himself and what he and his friends, the anti-government white separatists, are all about. Gary even takes Cathy/Katie out one night to a "Hunt" where Gary and his friends hunt down and murder a terrified young black man in the back woods. This makes Cathy/Katie feel terribly guilty since she's not honest with Gary even though Gary is so brutally honest with her about himself.

Debra Winger is phenomenal as the FBI undercover agent who's emotions are stronger the her senses and is tortured in what she's doing by setting up her lover as well as his family for the FBI. Even though he's a murder and is planing with his friends to commit a major attack and assassination of a number of top government leaders. Tom Berenger is as good as he ever was as the all-America Vietnam war hero who comes across as a cross between Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart that it's hard to believe that he not only believes the radical ideas that he openly talks about but also practices them. Meanwhile with all this going on there's a sinister sub-plot about an Illinois election that is connected with Gary's group that goes totally unnoticed by the FBI until it's too late that Gary kept from Cathy/Katie which exploded at the end of the film.

Pre-dating April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by seven years and the 9-11 terrorists attacks on New York City and Washington D.C by thirteen the film is without a doubt one the best movie about terrorism on US soil ever made and It puzzles me why Costa-Garvras' "Betrayed" doesn't get the attention that it should after those two terrible events.

I found this movie to be effective as both fiction and non-fiction. Debra Winger and Tom Berenger both give first rate performances. This movie reveals how racism is passed down from one generation to the next. The passage, "the sins of the father are visited on the son" seem particularly relevant. I was surprised that it did not receive a higher user rating. Eventhough I saw it years ago, it remains in my memory as a very powerful and important movie.

"Betrayed" is loosely based on the real life murder of a left-wing radio personality by the name of Alan Berg by a white supremacist group called The Order headed by a guy named Robert Mathews. The actual murder happened sometime in the 80s (I believe). In the film Debra Winger is an FBI agent sent undercover to a farming community in rural Illinois to find out information about a possible suspect (Tom Berenger) when a Chicago radio personality is killed.

I've watched this film a number of times over the years. Something keeps pulling me back to it. As someone else mentioned, there are moments that really burn their way into your memory. I can't believe somebody else commented on it, but there is a moment after Tom Berenger's family horse is "put down" and as Bergener and a young Ted Levine are leaving the barn in the rain we see Levine wrapped in plastic holding the gun he used to shoot the horse and walking slightly behind Berenger. For some reason, I've always found the image haunting. Someone else said the image of Levine signifies the devil, which certainly makes sense.

Another moment is when Winger and Berenger are watching through a window as the combine girls leave the motel and the entire scene is played out with the camera outside, and something is blocking the lower part of Berenger's face, so all we see throughout the scene are his eyes. And Winger says, "I don't like people getting hurt". And Berenger says "They aren't people. They're mud people." Something about it is very disturbing and strange.

The racial tirades in the film are quite jarring, too. Especially when the kids say them. The ugliness and hatred of the words contrasts so sharply with the obvious innocence of the children. We see so clearly that the children are not inherently bad, and are simply being taught hatred, as someone would teach a child the alphabet.

The hunting scene, as almost every reviewer has mentioned, is very disturbing, and is clearly meant to be disturbing. I still have trouble watching it.

I do think this is an important film, however. Most films depict the Aryan nation and similar groups as quite simply evil, without offering any kind of logic or shape to what they are about. Betrayed is a film that actually dares to show them as real people. The character of Shorty, played by John Mahoney is a brilliant creation and his campfire speech to Debra Winger, explaining his motivation for behaving like he does, is extremely important for anyone who wants to learn why some people would join a radical group.

Incidentally, there is also a (very disturbing) play entitled "God's Country" that is about the Alan Berg murder and Robert Mathews. And the Oliver Stone film "Talk Radio" is loosely based on Alan Berg's life and murder.

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.