Betrayed 1988, Rated R

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Starring Debra Winger, Tom Berenger, et al.

When I was but a young boy in grade school, I can remember my parents consistently urging me to work as hard as I could on my homework and reading assignments. Rather than watch TV or go outside and play, like the other kids on my block, I would spend my nights reading or doing extra studying. Granted, this all changed the minute I found out that girls were, in fact, pretty fun to be around and smelled nice, but the important message here is that the mantra of "hard work gets you ahead" was firmly ingrained in my head from an early age. What bothers me so much about this now is the fact that, at one time, before I became familiarized with the works of screenwriter hack Joe Eszerthas, I believed it to be true.

Eszterhas is best known for penning the awful script to Basic Instinct. He is lesser know for penning the awful scripts to The Jagged Edge, Showgirls, Jade, Sliver, Burn Hollywood Burn and the film here at hand, Betrayed. Whenever Eszterhas writes a new script, critics cower in fetal positions, uneasy about the absolute crap they are about to see, and audiences stay at home, not wanting to have anything to do with the man who actually wrote a script about a presidential candidate who was once caught having sex with a cow. However, despite a track record as poor as any screenwriter in southern California, Eszterhas continues to make more and more money for his scripts. Eszterhas is constantly being rewarded for doing his job poorly.

Written during the mid-eighties, Betrayed's script is standard Eszerthas, filled with unlikable characters doing unlikable things in an unbelievable fashion and the last of his so-called serious scripts; Eszterhas' interest in sex-related murders began with Basic Instinct in 1992 and continued throughout the rest of the '90's.

Debra Winger stars in Betrayed as Cathy Weaver, a rather green undercover FBI agent working in downstate Illinois to infiltrate a group of white supremicists led by Gary Simmons (Tom Berenger).

The events of the picture are loosely tied around the murder of a prominent Chicago DJ--the FBI suspects Gary's involvement in the killing--but the themes close at hand seem to focus on the emotional side of Cathy's undercover assignment. Initially, Cathy falls in love with Gary, refusing to believe that a man as sweet as he could possibly be involved in any of the schemes her superiors (led by John Heard) suggest him to be in. Tables are quickly turned when Gary invites Cathy to go hunting with his buddies . She agrees, not asking what the prey will be, and the group takes off, intent of killing a black teenager whom they kidnapped to serve as their target. Then, upon some serious reflection, Cathy realizes that Gary isn't exactly the kind of man you'd want to bring home to meet your parents. Once Cathy has grasped the true nature of Gary's being, her loss of innocence is complete; thusly hardened, Cathy begins to work in earnest to bring Gary to justice.

Eszterhas' material has never exactly put women into a positive light, and Winger's role in Betrayed is no different, as Cathy is forever trapped under the oppressive force of some male, be it Gary or her male superiors at the FBI. The idea of one person (of any sex) being forced to do things against his will for his own survival is a very tricky plotline to pull off. Even in the hands of a capable director this is next to impossible to do--something Alfred Hitchcock can attest to with the commercial and critical failure of his 1963 film Marnie, a film that dealt with this issue as well. However, in the hands of director Costa-Gavros, a man whose directorial presence matches Eszterhas' writing style, what we have on our hands is a film that desperately wants to be poignant and moving, that ends up being an exercise in cliché situations and tired and unentertaining on-screen action.

Berenger's performance as the supremely biggoted farmer is quite strong, eliciting a large degree of audience hatred, but this is wasted in the final product, being brought down by both the poor script and Winger and Hurt's phoned-in performances. This was an another abysmal Ezsterhas film... for which the man was rewarded handsomely.