Cloak & Dagger (1984).
The Stage.
A kid is on the run when he finds himself in possession of a video game cartridge filled with top secret information.
The Review.
When I was a kid, Cloak & Dagger was one of the video store holy grails when we’d go to the video rental store. The cover looked awesome, featured the kid from E.T., and I knew from the playground that it had to do with video games. If I had to guess, I finally got a chance to see it when I was eight or nine, and infatuated with Nintendo. I loved it as a kid, but hadn’t seen it since the salad days and couldn’t remember a thing about it. Recently, Vinegar Syndrome put out a fantastic package in 4K, which you can see pictures of on my Twitter or Instagram feeds, so I had to check it out.
Henry Thomas plays Davey, a kid with three friends; one friend is imaginary, a fictional spy named Jack Flack who he’s obsessed with (played by Dabney Coleman), and two are real - Kim, a girl his age who lives in his condo complex, and Morris, a nerd who runs the video game store at the mall. One day Morris gets tired of the kids hanging around and sends them on an errand and while there, Davey witnesses two hitmen kill a scientist in a scene obviously inspired by Hitchcock. The scientist stumbles out, hands Davey a video game cartridge titled Cloak & Dagger, and tells him to run before the hitmen finish him off by tossing him down a stairwell.
This kicks off a cat and mouse game in which our hero continuously outsmarts the three most inept criminals on planet Earth. Their first stop is to Davey’s home in a scene that’s got a sense of legitimate danger, but before the bad guys show up, we get evidence of a real emotional core to the film as Davey’s dad opens the door. It’s Dabney Coleman. Seems that Davey’s representation of the fictional character, Jack Flack is his dad, his hero. This little wrinkle pays off big time at the end of the film as well when Flack factors into the final showdown between Davey and one of the dumbass criminals. We also find out in this moment that Davey’s mom recently passed away - a perennial prerequisite in Reagan era kids films - giving us a crushingly sad moment that definitely made me wonder if all of this bizarre stuff that was happening was all in the kids mind, conjured by irreparable psychological damage considering how stupid everyone chasing him was.
Now, when I say these criminals are stupid, it’s got to be record breaking amounts of stupidity. There are several times when the bad guys find themselves within arms length of Davey and unload seven or eight bullets at him, missing every shot. This is especially weird later in the film, when one of the criminals kills a rat with a precise shot as it runs out of the shadows (shadows, by the way, that Davey is lying in and the bad guy doesn’t see him, despite the kid wearing a bright red jacket). One tries to stab him from just a foot away and misses, and then they even have the kid chloroformed and he ends up getting away. They’re literally the worst criminals money could buy, only able to kill adults, and even then, it’s when the victim doesn’t see them coming.
William Forsythe at his absolute nerdiest.
Speaking of that rat getting blasted, there’s a lot of crazy stuff going on here, par for the course in 80’s kids films. It’s obvious why I liked it when I was little. This film has a ton of silenced weapons, and they’re not just for show. Several people get shot or killed, including a character taking a bullet straight through the eye. There’s also a climax featuring a bomb on a hijacked plane, back in the days when you could just walk through airport security with one and no one cared. The ending is particularly explosive - I never knew how dark things would actually get, leading to some genuine suspense during the final showdown.
The End.
Despite being filmed from a script sporting plot holes like a slice of Swiss cheese, I liked Cloak and Dagger quite a bit. It’s complete nonsense, and definitely a film that, if made today, would be completely neutered…and with good reason. It’s dark as fuck. Children are not only put in danger (at one point, the main bad guy tells Davey he’s going to blow out his kneecaps which will hurt worse than any death, and then shoot him in the stomach so he’ll bleed out slowly) but they’re also dangerous, at one point killing someone with an actual gun. There are also some pretty scary scenes, including one twist featuring a person missing two fingers on their right hand. It definitely took me back to those days where you’d watch this at a sleepover and imagine yourself in the same situation.
The Vinegar Syndrome presentation is fantastic. Like I said, if you want a look at the packaging, take a look at the Instagram or Twitter feed. It’s got a beautiful magnetic clasp box and a slipcover made to look like an old, unofficial Atari game - spelling mistakes and all. The picture looked beautiful, and the extras plentiful. If you’re into those wacky, utterly irresponsible 80’s kids flicks, this one should bounce right to the top of your list.
