lood-stained and bandaged, Lieutenant Commander Tom Farrell (Kevin Costner) receives the tough-guy interrogation routine by a couple of intimidating heavies, while some unseen higher-up watches and records from behind a one-way mirror. Six months earlier, longtime college buddy Scott Pritchard (Will Patton) introduces Tom to Secretary of Defense David Brice (Gene Hackman) at an ostentatious gathering full of important, well-dressed people, where the President of the United States appeared just moments before. “He’s the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met in my life.”

Despite the introduction, which is markedly chilly, Tom is more interested in Susan Atwell (Sean Young, in a role that seems more in line with Debra Winger’s usual characters), a conspicuously attractive party attendee who doesn’t take much persuading to leave the event with him for sex in a limo as they ride around the city – and then to continue their tryst at her friend’s apartment. “If you wanna look down my dress, you need to grow a few inches.” It’s short-lived, however, as the Navy man must depart in the morning to serve aboard the USS Billings, where a mission to track a Russian sub finds Tom heroically saving a man nearly swept overboard during a storm. His adventures at sea, however, are also cut short when Brice sees an article in the newspaper about the rescue and forms a plan to utilize the political pawn at the Pentagon.

The connections between the various players builds, but the actual complications are rather slow to form. Music by Maurice Jarre suggests who is dangerous and who is innocuous, giving away little though, considering how the potential villains are entirely obvious. At first, it’s nothing more than an uncomfortable love triangle, in which Tom pushes his way into Susan’s personal life, intersecting with powerful people with links to the White House. Numerous scenes are dedicated solely to romantic getaways, as if the film is focused on some great love affair as opposed to political thrills. The possibilities for relationship disasters are high, what with jealous participants and the scandalous associations, but the scope seems intimate and minimal.

“It’s a house of cards.” Ultimately, even with the use of governmental bigshots, the premise is very much a tinier mystery – one with conspiracy theories and a significant, weighty twist – but still a somewhat small design. Amusingly, an investigation gets underway, coupled with another investigation on top of that, with multiple divisions attempting to uncover what everyone else is digging into and scrutinizing; in a weirdly, anecdotally accurate way, the film demonstrates how every intelligence agency works against one another, refusing to share information and conducting covert maneuvers that interfere with missions and schemes. No one is in league and ostensible favors are merely ploys to manipulate and coerce; of course, it certainly helps when cover-ups and assassinations are on the menu.

Though the script is the third theatrical adaptation of “The Big Clock” by Kenneth Fearing, which employs a clever frame job (here transported into a political arena), the story is nicely designed for the film medium. And thanks to director Roger Donaldson, additional action sequences aim to heighten tensions and escalate the spectacle. Extremely near misses, countdowns to smoking guns, overly convenient acquaintances, triple crosses, and unbelievable coincidences tend to bring doubts to the precision of the thrills, but it’s routinely entertaining throughout as Tom gets pitted against considerable odds (it also provides an unexpected link to “Enemy of the State,” which incorporates similar themes and a key actor, and “Salt,” which shares some unfortunate revelations and an extra, needless development – presumably deemed desirable to surprise anyone too familiar with the source material). Plus, the finale is unforgettable, though not in a particularly satisfying way.

– Mike Massie