Favorite Son

Jeff Bleckner – 1988 – USA

It’s Richard Condon meets Jacqueline Susann in this three-part TV movie from 1988, and in every scene, it screams “1980s American TV,” full of histrionic acting, salaciousness that tests the boundaries of prime-time acceptability, and momentous, night-time soap style close-ups and transitions. There is so much that’s great about it, and so much that’s ludicrous. It’s often like two separate movies at war with each other; one a hard hitting, almost satirical political thriller like The Manchurian Candidate and the other a remake of The Love Machine. As a young Senator’s chief advisor, Linda Kozlowski isn’t a bad actress, but it’s impossible to care about a character who is supposed to sympathetic most of the way through and yet who telegraphs her secret motives constantly, usually by inexplicably pulling out her seduction techniques at the drop of a hat. One major plus is the big supporting cast of intimidating “good old boys” memorably played by John Mahoney, Ronny Cox, Richard Bradford and Kenneth McMillan. But the real casting coup that elevates all the goings-on above flimsy soap opera is the feral, growling performance of Robert Loggia, who seems to have dropped in from a whole different production. While everyone else is hamming it up and going for those Emmys, Loggia comes up with some ferocious character work completely on his own, playing a veteran, uncouth FBI agent assigned to a suspicious political shooting in Washington D.C. Written and produced by author of the source novel, Steve Sohmer, it summons some great moments of intrigue and suspense and then instantly invalidates them with preposterous and laughable plot twists, including a complete revelation of the crime’s origins via a character’s flashback from out of nowhere. It’s a compelling idea and story even if every element feels pretty familiar, but it’s hard not to imagine how strong it could have been in the hands of a quality director who would have been appropriate at that time; Michael Mann, John Frankenheimer, or even Mick Jackson.