WARGAMES FEATURING EDDIE DEEZEN INTERVIEW

year: 1983

This iconic tech thriller hit screens as home computers were becoming fairly commonplace inside particular bedrooms of brainy suburban teenagers… Enter Matthew Broderick as David, who, with the light tap of a few consul buttons, is able to change his own grades after smarting off to an uptight Science teacher while his new girlfriend Jennifer, played by near-future Brat Pack beauty Ally Sheedy, is by his side when an intriguing game appears on David’s computer during a search, fitfully and formidably titled THERMONUCLEAR WAR, which happens to instigate potential World War III between then Cold War rivals America and Russia.

Ally Sheedy

The best scenes involve our two young leads, who have terrific chemistry. Their adventure, from the suburbs to the inside of the Government war room, is palpable within the awestruck of their youthful countenance as if we too experience the seriousness of the matter within the steely exterior. Meanwhile Dabney Coleman and Barry Corbin head the confounded officials in charge of, and having to luck at, discovering to fix this impending doom.

Politely captured, the suspense involving David and Jennifer’s escape is nail-biting fun. Leading to an excursion to find the man who created the game… Supposedly, John Wood’s island-dwelling recluse, Falken, was originally meant for John Lennon when the film was conceived years earlier, and with another director on board. A villain in another Broderick vehicle, LADYHAWKE, Wood turns in a capable performance but the character exhibits too much obvious anti-war sentiment, seeming more like a political ad lecture, and his primary diatribe drags on. Leading to a calculating climax back in the war room, also paling to the initial investigatory journey.

Eddie Deezen

Other actors include Michael Madsen, part of an edgy, claustrophobic two-man prologue. And EDDIE DEEZEN steals a scene as Malvin, a computer geek, one of the first ever, helping provide a technical bridge for our young heroes before things get really serious.

CULT FILM FREAK: Did you adlib any of your lines?

EDDIE DEEZEN: No, but I did keep forgetting my one line about “Data Encryption Algorithm". I kept screwing up take after take. Finally, my director, who was Marty Brest, took me for a little walk around. He told me my screw-ups were costing them money! He told me they were going to give me cue cards or idiot cards to read my lines off of. I easily read the scene’s dialog after that. Man, I fell in love with cue cards. Marty was fired after about twelve days shooting, and John Badham replaced him. Luckily, they kept my scene with Maury Chaykin in.

OVERALL MOVIE SCORE:

***1/2