During a state visit to Canada, President Adam Scott is warned by Secret Service agent Jerry O'Connor about a potential threat to his life. Scott ignores O'Connor's warning and is consequently abducted by South American terrorist Roberto Assanti and his female accomplice. They demand $100 million in diamonds along with two airplanes as ransom for the president's safe return. While Scott is being held captive in an armored truck booby-trap with high explosives timed to detonate at midnight, O'Connor must find a way into the truck to rescue him before that happens, while also contending with a turf war between various U.S. federal law enforcement agencies and the political ambitions of the U.S. vice president, Ethan Richards. Agent O'Connor eventually gets one of Assanti's terrorist group members to turn on Assanti, which caused Assanti's sister to die. O'Connor learns Assanti's plan for the president and develops a plan to save the President by going through the engine and firewall with a cutting torch.
Cast
William Shatner as Secret Service agent Jerry O'Connor
Virginia Podesser as the Canadian Prime Minister's wife
Novel
The movie is based on Charles Templeton's 1977 bestseller novel of the same name. The primary difference between the two is the story's location. The book sets the kidnapping in New York City's Herald Square and the subsequent siege in nearby Times Square. In the movie, the kidnapping occurs in Templeton's home city, Toronto, with the mob, chase, and explosion scenes commencing in Nathan Phillips Square. Cast members found Toronto to be a nice and interesting city with an admirable lack of condescension. Although the novel and the film have their differences, senior feature writer at The Globe and Mail Stephen Godfrey found "the film is as easy to 'read' as the book apparently was. The inevitable cross-cutting, from fanatical terrorists to the presidential cavalcade, and later, from a nearly unflappable security man in Toronto, is well handed."
Critical reception
The film received lukewarm ratings overall. It received a lot of talk from the New York Post and the Newark Star Ledger as well as outstanding reviews from Bergen Records and other newspaper organizations. Unlike Bergen Records and other newspapers, Janet Maslin, from The New York Times, disagreed with the reviews because she thought the plot was not fresh enough to be frightening and the characters were not brave enough to do anything new. Chris Lowry, a writer for Film Reviews, found George Mendeluk's directing uninspiring and Richard Murphy's screenplay mediocre for an action movie. Lowry stated, "the film disorients and disturbs the audience at the outset" since the subject of kidnapping a president isn't a funny concept in general. He expected the editing to be better as well since the readers of the novel were aware that the setting is different in the film compared to the novel.
