David Underwood Movies

A yuppie and a hippie are the offbeat pairing of this character comedy in the tradition of earlier mismatched buddy films such as Midnight Run (1988). Kiefer Sutherland is uptight, 26-year-old FBI agent John Buckner, who's been assigned to escort an aging counterculture radical named Huey Walker (Dennis Hopper) to Oregon for trial on a charge that's decades old. Buckner finds Huey's lifestyle and beliefs irresponsible. Once the two are bound for their Pacific Northwest destination, Huey begins to play psychological mind games with the straight-arrow Buckner, convincing him that he's tripping on hallucinogenic drugs, getting him drunk, and setting him up with a hooker named Sparkle (Kathleen York). Huey trades places with his captor and soon a game of cat-and-mouse is afoot as the agent pursues the one-time radical, with surprising revelations abounding regarding Buckner's childhood and Huey's motivations for allowing himself to be captured. Flashback also stars Carol Kane, Cliff De Young, Richard Masur, Michael McKean, and Paul Dooley. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

The original "honor student by day, hooker by night" melodrama, Angel stars Donna Wilkes in the title role. During the daylight hours, the 15-year-old Angel is known as Molly, a model prep school student. Devoid of parents, Molly must find some way to keep up the cash flow, so she hits the Hollywood mean streets as a prostitute. While we thankfully don't see Angel "in action", as it were, the film makes up in violence what it lacks in raw sex. Psycho John Diehl is on the loose murdering prostitutes; detective Cliff Gorman tries to stem the murder spree, but soon the hooker ranks are sorely diminished, leaving Angel the next likely target. With the help of such friends as ex-cowboy star Rory Calhoun and transvestite Dick Shawn, Angel manages to avoid becoming a statistic. We're not giving anything away here: after all, there was a 1986 sequel, Avenging Angel. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi