Time Lapse Reviews

This science fiction-laced action extravaganza features a clueless protagonist mired in a government conspiracy, the sort of paranoid plot that once seemed far-fetched but now feels like business as usual. Agent Clayton Pierce (William McNamara) is shocked to learn that the sting his CIA boss, La Nova (Roy Scheider), has set up involves trafficking in nuclear arms. The botched operation is aborted and in its aftermath, Pierce can't remember key details of the affair and neither the nuclear device nor Pierce's partner, Gaines (Henry Rollins), can be found. Pierce suspects interference by CIA medical expert Warren (Haskell Vaughn Anderson), but his nemesis is actually La Nova, who kills Warren and frames Pierce. By injecting his field agents with an amnesia-inducing drug called "oblivion," La Nova insures that they have faulty recollections of the crooked operations in which he involves them. Failing to recognize La Nova's traitorous nature, Pierce enlists the help of his estranged wife, Kate (Dina Meyer), to bolster his failing memory. Pierce locates Gaines, but soon after the ravages of oblivion drive Gaines to suicide; Pierce realizes that the same thing will happen to him. La Nova surreptitiously injects Kate with oblivion during a brief meeting in which he expresses his concern for Pierce. Eventually, both Pierce and Kate locate Simon, (Barry Lynch), Pierce's mentor and the one man who can topple La Nova's dirty kingdom. Before Simon can whip up antidotes for Pierce and Kate, La Nova flies in by helicopter and shoots him. Pierce selflessly forces Kate to take the available does oblivion antidote, but can he defeat La Nova even as his identity disintegrates? Despite its familiar elements (a bit of TOTAL RECALL, a smidgen of IMPOSTOR) this conspiracy thriller works up a good head of genre steam.