Getting Even

This uninspired hostage drama has a plot that ultimately stretches audience credibility too far. Joe Don Baker, who has made a career out of playing bullish villains, is an insane industrialist threatening to unleash a deadly flesh-eating gas upon the population of Dallas unless he's paid $50 million. (There are shades here of the storyline to future blockbuster The Rock.) Edward Albert is the rival businessman hot on his heels. Dwight H Little displays numerous directorial inadequacies by allowing the pace to lag, fatal when you're trying to sustain a doomsday scenario, but delivers a rip-snorting final reel featuring dazzling aerial stunts.