OK modest budget (made-for-TV) mystery/suspense movie (with alternate title: "CIA: Exiled" -- NYT review under that name) maintains interest mostly due to another good performance by William Peterson as complex (flawed) 'good guy'. George C. Scott merely strolls through role as sort-of buddy and linchpin of mystery to be solved; other cast members entirely forgettable. well-written with OK direction but seems to have had ending altered from original to make movie more satisfying to mass TV audience looking for 'happy ending'. How surmise this-SPOILER!: a. Movie opens with George C. Scott cold-bloodily shooting young bank robber in back (after sweet-talking gun away from him) as boy walking away; b. Peterson back-story is as experienced CIA field-man who killed double-crossing CIA colleague and then 'exiled' by CIA to 'non-job' in Curacao; c. at end, Scott fakes death, escapes to small nearby island and asks Peterson (who leaving area) to drop by -- Scott tells Peterson that Peterson is only one who knows Scott still alive. OBVIOUSLY (only reason for a-b-c above) the original concept was to have sweet-talking Scott try to shoot Peterson in back as Peterson walking away -- but Peterson cunningly turns and shoots Scott (his 'colleague') instead and then tells him (in effect), "...don't confuse me with a scared kid in a bank." apart from (obviously) altered ending, movie is an OK hour-and-half (if popcorn at hand). Stock footage of Curacao pleasant enough; probably shot whole movie at Paramount lot and Santa Monica pier. BTW, perhaps Trish Van Devere's real role (as Rose?) was to play George C. Scott's main squeeze when they weren't actually on the set.

I liked this movie. It wasn't an Oscar winner, but it was interesting. I was surprised that it wasn't predictable. William Petersen plays an exiled CIA agent called Steven Guerin. Geurin is exiled to the American Consulate in Curacao. He is constantly being watched by his own people due to his discontent. He is also being sought out by the enemy to become a double agent. Guerin gets entangled in a web of intrigue when his friend Cornelius(George C. Scott) gets him involved in an insurance scam. Cornelius has a record of his own involvement in the sinking of a cargo ship and the deaths of his crew for money in an act of insurance fraud. Cornelius leaves the evidence in Guerin's lap. Guerin is then caught between mobsters from South Africa and China. Petersen is wonderful as Guerin. The viewer can "taste" the character's discontent. I can't see any trace of what would become CSI's Gil Grissom. I have seen several of his early works and usually rent the movie before buying it if I liked it.. I would recommend all of them, especially "Gunshy". George C. Scott is wonderful as Cornelius. This is a role I wouldn't have expected him in. He is wonderful. Just enough to make the viewer pity him and just enough for the audience to loath him.This movie is a keeper and I have already purchased it.

Steven Guerin is a disgraced fed working a dead-end security job on the beautiful south Caribbean island of Curaçao when suddenly things go a bit crazy. A friend confesses his part in a terrible crime which is now catching up with him, a dangerous South African spy offers him a suspicious job, and a beautiful colleague/lover from his past arrives to complicate matters. What's the right thing to do ?This glossy and enjoyable made-for-cable film is a stylish modern version of glamorous forties classics like To Have And Have Not or The Glass Key, all sultry dames, put-upon heroes, sneaky plot machinations and idyllic scenery. The Dutch Antilles setting of Curaçao is fabulous, with its lush tropical backdrops, steamy groves, sudden downpours, Venetian stylings and carnival atmosphere - it pretty much has erotic thriller stamped all over it. As too does Petersen, who burns through the Bogart/Cagney lead, smouldering intensity, speaking quietly, piercing the other actors with thoughtful stares. Scott has an interesting part as the cowardly bartender Wettering, the lynch-pin of the story, but is unusually ordinary and lumbers himself with a slightly lame accent. However, there is excellent support from Carmen (In The Mouth Of Madness) as the career-comes-first agent, Sayle (Gorky Park) as the nasty apartheid Boss, and Anglim (Haunted Summer) as the world-weary flatfoot. The whole thing is polished off with pleasing photography by Ellery Ryan and a good clattering spy story revolving around a purloined ship's manifest. A fine cable movie by Schultz, who's made some other interesting stuff (The Seventh Sign, To Walk With Lions). Scripted by James D. Buchanan, from his book The Prince Of Malta. The UK TV print has the rather insipid alternative title, Deadly Currents.

I have just watched "Curacao"on cable and I found it quite reasonable for late night watching. It has nice exotic locations and quite a number of really mysterious characters. The storyline was at least as good as most of the crime investigation stories that William Peterson is in now that he is older. In some way which I can not really explain it reminded me of a Humphrey Bogart film, maybe with Alexei Sayle in the Sydney Greenstreet role. Re the character named Rose, played by Trish van Devere, I think that Stephen Geurin (William Petersen) called the secretary "Rose" when he went in to his office in the embassy near the beginning of the film.