Natural Causes Reviews

Full of brutal assassinations, inscrutable dastards, and sex, NATURAL CAUSES is simply a cable TV thriller force-fed with too much political content. Separated for many years from her mother, Rachel (Janis Paige), who chose to live in Bangkok after her husband and son were slain in Viet Nam, physician Jessie McCarthy (Linda Purl) arrives in Bangkok for a reunion only to find that Rachel has been murdered and her body cremated. It is the eve of an international conference celebrating US rapprochement with the Viet Nam government. Befriended by embassy attache Fran Jakes (Ali MacGraw) and grilled by a Thai colonel (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), Jessie steps into a minefield of conspiracy that may link her late mother to arms smuggling, passport forging, and illegal alien activities. Targeted for death and uncertain whom to trust, Jessie accepts the sexual and protective custody of the Colonel. As she searches a photo that may provide a clue to the location of the conspirators' next move, the zealot (Tim Thomerson) who killed Rachel plots to scuttle the US-Viet Nam treaty by eliminating Henry Kissinger (Robert Radford). Betrayed by Jakes, who is involved in the campaign to prevent US-Viet Nam reconciliation, and separated from the Colonel during a car chase, Jessie rushes to her mother's home to prevent the catastrophe about to transpire on a yacht full of dignitaries. The Colonel is shot by the assassin, who is in turn shot by Jessie. A patriot lobs a grenade into Jakes' car, and the historic reconciliation proceeds without further bloodshed. Shot amidst the seductive Thai splendor that travel brochures always promise, the lush-looking NATURAL CAUSES is a confusing thriller that's more aggravating than nailbiting. The film's major concession to reality is that the central character's first impulse is to get the hell out of the country fast. Compromised by poor casting (Thomerson and McGraw are particularly ill-suited to their roles), NATURAL CAUSES punches up individual scenes with suspense but can't stack them together so that the thrills lead to a heart-stopping conclusion. Entertaining in fits and starts, this turgid thriller lacks the directorial assuredness that could sweep all reservations aside. Dispatching Kissinger is an historically intriguing premise that this rather conventional film doesn't live up to. (Graphic violence, sexual situations, extreme profanity.)