Cloak and Dagger (1984)

"Jack Flack always escapes"

When we were kids, the world really was our playground. Even walking to the shops with your mam could have been an adventure. Rotted old sticks became swords in our hands, cars became monsters to be slayed, roads became treacherous rivers to be crossed. Sadly, most of us grow out of the ability to totally immerse ourselves in our own creations. Well, maybe not all of us. Take the likes of 'Dungeons and Dragons'. You create your own fantasy character; a role of the dice is the difference between left and right or alive and dead, and is all played out on a fairly plain board with only your 'Dungeon Master' to keep everything in check. It seems to be hugely popular, and is played by children and adults alike. I've never played it, but I always felt it would take a lot more mental capacity than I was willing to hand over to fully benefit from the game. It was also confusing looking. I was more of a 'Mouse Trap' kinda guy...

Cloak and Dagger does an impressive job of showing you how much imagination is required to play those role-playing games in its opening sequence. We see a secret agent by the name of Jack Flack (Dabney Coleman) as he infiltrates a swanky looking mansion party, killing guards, deflecting bullets, dodging huge weird looking dice rolling towards him... turns out we are witnessing a play-by-play round of 'Cloak and Dagger', an RPG, being executed by young Davey (Henry Thomas) and his next door neighbour friend Kim (Christina Nigra).

Davey has a pretty vivid imagination. His hero and imaginary friend, Jack Flack, regularly helps him out by giving solid advice on how best to handle strangers, building security guards and his father (also played by Dabney Coleman). As he spends so much time living in his own world of Cold War spies, it's no surprise that suddenly he seems to find himself in the middle of a murder and espionage plot. It turns out that the Atari Cartridge that has been shoved into his hands by a dying computer programmer contains some wild information that the bad guys want. With the murderers now on his tail, who is going to believe young Davey, with all his crazy stories of spies and attempted murder? The race is on for survival as Davey and Kim must use their wits to stay ahead of the killers, and prevent the Atari cartridge from falling into the wrong hands...

Cloak and Dagger does many things that surprised me. On one hand, it's a decent enough action/adventure; the kids have to deal with home invasion, kidnapping, killers, MANY attempts on their lives, close friends getting shot, creepy old people; it's a solid and tense ride, especially for the PG audience it is aimed at. The stakes are high for the characters, and they can only trust themselves. On the other hand, it's a thoughtful film on how a very young boy is dealing with the death of a parent, and longing for his father to be the hero he wants him to be. Davey must learn that in the real world, heroes are not just those who go out and kill the bad guys, but are those every day guys who provide for their families, raise their kids and look out for one another. Sure, the last scene of the film is fairly mawkish, but in a film such as this, it was expected.

The kids do a nice enough job at convincing emotion, Henry Thomas had enough experience at that stage to handle the heavier scenes. And some scenes do get heavy enough. At one point, a bad guy describes how he is going to 'blast off' his knee caps with a machine gun, then shoot him in the belly, as it is a painful way to die. Davey is left with no choice but to shoot the guy; not something we would probably see in a kids film these days. Daveys neck-bearded, computer programming friend Morris ( a barely recognisable William Forsythe), who helps him uncover the info hidden on the Atari cart, meets a grisly end via bullet to the face, and our young hero is forced to ride in the boot of a car with his dead body. I can't imagine this kind of thing happening in the 'Spy Kids' films.

Christina Nigra as Kim isn't as good,; but she is a lot younger, and is mainly there for comedy relief. Her combination of stilted performance and sarky attitude made me laugh, and not in a mean way for once. Dabney Coleman is good in his dual roles as both father and secret agent, giving a grounded feel to his scenes with the younger actors. Another mention needs to be made of the creepy old couple, something about a withered old lady with only three fingers freaks me out.

Directed by Richard Franklin, probably best known for Psycho II , the pacing is taut and the action well conceived. It was written by Tom Holland, best known for genre flicks such as 'Fright Night' and 'Child's Play'. For Atari fans, there is loads of footage of the arcade game of 'Cloak and Dagger', made specifically for the film. Plus there are tons of Atari 5200's littered around in the first half an hour of the film. Even though it kinda pitches a little like 'War Games' for juniors, don't let that put you off. There is plenty for both kids and adults to get out of this, not least the life lessons. Kids; sometimes you have to man up and deal with things yourselves. Adults, if your kid tells you some big guys are trying to kill them, believe them!