It's 1978 Rome. Violence is in the air threatened by the revolutionary Red Brigade. American David Raybourne (Andrew McCarthy) returns to write for a small paper and a fictional book about them. His friend Italo Bianchi (John Pankow) is a leftist American lecturer at an university. His girlfriend Lia (Valeria Golino) is the estranged wife of rich and powerful Marco. Photo journalist Alison King (Sharon Stone) is also after the Red Bridgade and sees Raybourne as a possible lead. This is a fictionalized account of events leading to the real kidnapping and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro.The directing from John Frankenheimer seems inferior or obsolete. The tension needs to be higher. This feels more like a 70's movie. Instead of three lead American characters, I would prefer to see a movie about Italian characters in this Italian drama. I'm not that interested in these Americans although the political intrigue seems compelling. The Americans can always walk away from any danger. It's an extra layer that separates these characters from the intensity of the story.

An intriguing film and despised. I do not understand why not give due weight to this film. Already I watched several times and every one of them I realize their best value. The story is very good, comes to political issues of an Italy relatively new, still very much alive in our memory. And the treatment of the film is very close to the reality of the facts. The cast works very competently. Sharon Stone is one of his good moments. Valeria Golino may have done their best work here and Andrew McCarthy surprised with his performance. The action scenes are well done, with some small mistakes, but perfectly acceptable in situations such as those portrayed in the film. In summary this is a great film, but you need to give a little more attention to it.

David Raybourne is an American journalist covering political news in Italy during the 1970's. He gets involved with the Red Brigades when trying to help Alison King, who photographed them in action and discover the mafia net is at all levels...Wow.I've seen some bad films, but Frankenheimer has made some decent movies in the past, and this was supposed to be factual, so it had my attention.McCarthey is woefully miscast in this, and the film consists of him and the bloke from To Live And Die In L.A, eating sandwiches and drinking wine.It's supposed to be some controversial movie about the Red Brigade movement, but in fact it's nothing more than McCarthey being a dirty old man and pursuing Stone while Golino is waiting at home for him.Dialogue is beyond bad, and its filmed in such a way, it looks really really cheap, like true movies cheap.It's a torturous watch, and its no wonder McCarthy didn't really get any more starring roles after this, and Stone had to be more...revealing.Avoid.

SPOILERS!There are three redeeming features about this terrible film. 1. An exciting fight scene, ending in sex. 2. A Student riot. 3. A Speedy motorbike chase, ending with a murder.Apart from that, this film is surprisingly unpromising and McCarthy delivers one of the worst performances i've ever seen he might as well be a plank of wood for all he's worth. The location of rome could be shot well, but in dank, dark colours and photos of run down cobbled houses, he fails at th easiest of opportunities. This is almost as boring as the videos they show in history lessons at high school!Frankly, Disappointing. **/****