Cloak & Dagger
Tags: psychedelic, murder

Plot synopsis:
Davey Osborne (Henry Thomas) is an 11-year-old who lives in San Antonio, Texas with his father, Hal Osborne (Dabney Coleman). His mother has recently died, leaving just him and his father, a military air traffic controller who has problems relating to his child. Davey is a lonely child and is still grieving over his mother, so he immerses himself in the fantasy world of Cloak & Dagger, an espionage game which exists in both role playing and video forms. Davey has one friend, Kim, (Christina Nigra) a girl who lives nearby with her single mother. Davey is interested in the world of espionage and his hero is the character Jack Flack from the game. He wants to live an action-packed life like Jack Flack and he carries around a water pistol as his "gun" and a softball as his "grenade". Davey spends much of his free time playing Cloak & Dagger and spinning elaborate fantasies involving Jack Flack, an imaginary friend who takes the form of a more dashing version of his father (the role of Flack is also played by Coleman). Only the audience and Davey can ever see Jack Flack, because the only character that believes in Jack Flack is Davey.
One day Davey's friend Morris (William Forsythe), who owns a game shop in the local mall, sends Davey and Kim on an errand, where Davey witnesses a murder. Right before the victim dies, he gives Davey a Cloak & Dagger video-game cartridge and says that the cartridge contains important military secrets, that he must get it to the FBI. Davey seeks help from the authorities but they simply believe him to be engaging in fantasy play.
Heavily armed but inattentive spies, led by Dr. Rice (Michael Murphy), chase Davey relentlessly as he flees across the city. The action moves from Davey's house, to a series of tour boats, to the Alamo. Along the way Davey manages to continually evade his pursuers with the aid and advice of the imaginary Jack Flack. However, along the way Davey's relationship with Jack becomes more strained as his own sense of morality and concern for his friend Kim collide with Jack's harsh methods and cavalier attitude. This comes to a head when Davey is cornered by Rice along the River Walk.
During the fight, Jack urges Davey to set up the two spies into the "Crossfire Gambit", causing one to kill the other. Jack convinces Davey to pick up the gun of the dead spy, but rather than shoot Rice, Davey panics and runs away down a dead-end path. Rice arrives and corners Davey. Assuming the gun Davey holds is the same red ink-filled water pistol from earlier, Rice taunts him by threatening to shoot both his kneecaps and stomach and allowing him to die in agony. When Davey proves unwilling to shoot first, Jack tries to get Rice's attention. Standing in front of a blank wall (and holding his Agent-X bulletproof beret in front of him for protection), Jack dares Rice to shoot him. Davey looks to Jack, warning him not to do anything, and Rice instinctively turns and fires a burst at the wall, thinking "Jack" is a hidden ally. An enraged Davey fires his pistol, killing Rice and causing his lifeless body to fall into the river.
Realizing that Jack had tricked him into shooting the spy, Davey throws away the pistol, pulls the miniature of Jack out of his pocket and, with a shout of "I don't want to play anymore!" breaks the miniature in two, stomping it into the concrete. Jack tells Davey his father behaved the same way at his age, growing tired of playing "Cowboys and Indians". As he speaks, blood begins to pour from the bullet holes that now riddle his body, and Jack abruptly collapses. While expressing regret about the rule, "...leaving when they stop believing," Jack confesses Davey was always his favorite playmate. Distracting Davey by asking for a smoke, Jack fades away into nothing. When Davey calls to Jack, saying he can't do it alone, Jack's voice reassures him that he always could, and tells him to go save Kim.
Earlier in a scene at the Alamo, Davey had been befriended by a kind elderly couple. Seemingly the only adults to believe him, or at least the only ones who are willing to humor his adventures, the couple turn out to be enforcers working for the spies. Davey manages to escape their clutches, but without the game cartridge, and he chases the couple to the airport where they are attempting to flee the country. At the airport, Davey forces the couple's hand by pretending that they are his parents and that they are abandoning him. When security attempts to intervene, Davey tells the guard the proof is the game cartridge he knows they have. Cornered, the couple kidnaps Davey at gunpoint and commandeers a plane, unaware that Davey has brought with him a bomb which the spies had meant to use to kill Kim. Unwilling to listen to Davey about the bomb, the couple requests a pilot. Meanwhile, Hal has arrived at the airport with Kim's mother, and after hearing about the hostage situation, he volunteers to be the pilot. As the plane moves to the runway, Davey tries to summon Jack for help; his father hears him and identifies himself as "Jack Flack" and calls Davey to the cockpit. When the female enforcer shows up to bring him, she discovers the bomb and panics, calling for her husband. As the two enforcers try to disable the bomb, Hal succeeds in getting Davey out of the plane through the cockpit window. Davey runs after the plane as it continues to taxi down the runway, calling for his father, until the bomb explodes, killing the enforcers, incinerating the cartridge, and leaving the wreckage in flames. As Davey stares at the flames a figure appears and approaches him, looking at first like the silhouette of Jack Flack before revealing that it is in fact his father. As the two embrace Davey asks how he was able to escape, to which Hal replies with the Cloak & Dagger catchphrase, "Jack Flack always escapes." The film ends with the two reunited and Davey insisting he no longer needs Jack Flack because he has his father.

Review: Its amazing how, as kids, we saw this movie in the 80s where a child is being chased, shot at, almost stabbed, threaten to have his knee caps blown off and shot in the gut, kill 3 guys (2 not by him but caused by him)and be held hostage...and it was a family film rated PG!
A movie made like this today would make the kid a genius and the bad guys clumsy and stupid.
When my kids get old enough I do want them to watch these 80s film and learned to appreciate good film-making, something lacking in the 21st century, and by box-office results, the audience notices it too..
Henry Thomas ("E.T.") plays Davey Osborne, a lonely boy who has escaped into the fantasy world of his favorite video game hero - Jack Flack.
Dabney Coleman gives the greatest performance of his career in the dual roles of Jack Flack and Davey's father.
Davey must keep an ATARI game cartridge containing plans for an invisible bomber plane encoded inside of it out of traitorous spies' hands, but no adult believes him, and he gets little help from the only person who does - his even younger friend Kim.
And Louis Anderson also has a short cameo towards the end."Cloak & Dagger" is an excellent movie about a boy who must face the dangers of the world all by himself following the death of his mother and his father's preoccupation with work.
Dabney Coleman's character of Jack Flack is the best imaginary mentor ever featured in a film, preceding the likes of Tyler Durden and Frank the Bunny by over 15 years.
"Cloak & Dagger" is a film suitable for the whole family whose time has finally come to get the recognition it deserves.
A Little Seen Gem. CLOAK & DAGGER is a wonderful film from the '80s, a touching story about a boy who has an overdeveloped imagination, largely due to his mother being dead and his father being a career military man who often seems too busy for his son.
The boy, Davey, has an imaginary friend by the name of Jack Flack who looks just like his dad.
When Davey actually does witness a horrible murder and is given a video game cartridge with top secret plans encoded inside, he tells his father about it and of course he doesn't believe him.
That's one of the techniques that make for good children's movies, the recognition that a child's fantasy life can feel as real as anything else happening around him.
And movies in which the child's fantasies literally come true seem like vindication to young viewers.Henry Thomas of "E.T." fame plays a youngster mourning his mother's death by escaping into a fantasy world of adventure games.
He has an imaginary friend called Jack Flack, a suave super-spy with a passing resemblance to the boy's father (Dabney Coleman, in a wonderful dual role).
So when he witnesses the actual murder of an FBI agent, who slips him a video game cartridge right before dying, the boy is the last person anyone will believe.
He knows the murderers will be after him next, but how will he get his dad to believe him soon enough to stay home from work the next day?What's nice about the film is the seamless way it combines the conventions of adult thrillers and children's adventures.
I'm sure the filmmakers realized the connection, for there are many nods to Hitchcock, including a visual allusion to "Vertigo" as the murder victim plummets down a long stairway, and a plot that combines elements of "Rear Window" and "North by Northwest." Like the latter, the movie greatly exploits its locale.
Viewers who have been to San Antonio will recognize many of the places, including the River Walk, the setting for a unique chase scene.Then there is the MacGuffin of the "Cloak & Dagger" cartridge itself, a special copy containing information important to the bad guys (whom the kid perceives to be spies, but who may simply be mobsters).
The Atari game looks quite primitive today, and the scenes in which the boy calls upon his geek friend (William Forsythe) to crack the code will probably not impress those who take interest in computer espionage.
While it doesn't pretend to be realistic, it does grow out of the basic truth that adults don't take kids as seriously as they should.The movie also confirms, once again, that Henry Thomas was one of the best child actors of all time.
Thomas never feels like he's acting, and as a result we almost can believe in the absurd events even when we watch the movie as adults, long having set aside our own childhood fantasies..
The movie is evenly paced and builds up to an exciting climax the way an adult thriller would say in the form of a James Bond movie but while doing this the film doesn't insult the intelligence of children --- a lot of whom are more intelligent than we give them credit for..
Cloak and Dagger was one of my favorite films as a child and continues to hold up well as time passes by.
Henry Thomas remains in many ways one of a scant few child actors to make their mark in multiple films (something Disney has struggled with in recent years, even with the attempts to market mediocre talents like Hilary Duff and Lindsey Lohan).
And in an era where role playing games of any nature were looked down on, this portrayed them in a heroic light-"Jack Flack always escapes".There are a number of skilled character actors who make up the supporting cast for this film, and the script continues to hold up to today's standards.
In many ways, this film should act as a template for movie studios looking to craft a story for young audiences, as opposed to "Shark Boy and Lava Girl"..
ANYWAY, this is a good movie, your kids will probably like it (if only to see what video games were like in the dark ages) and you'll like it, too..
It was the coolest movie I'd ever seen because it was an action movie about kids who solve a mystery and save the day.Henry Thomas is Davey Osbourne.
And to aid in his games of eluding spies and dodging secret plans of assasination, Davey defers to his wartime hero, Jack Flack, an action hero that he has turned into an imaginary playmate as well as a father figure guidance to make up for an absentee father.
But, before the victim draws his last breath, he hands Davey a Cloak & Dagger video cartridge that contains top secret plans.
And, while the adults think he is just playing another game, Davey and his sassy friend Kim and Jack Flack all try to solve the crime.
It is a great movie in part because you get a peak at the imagination of a twelve-year-old-boy and, once again, because a few clever kids get to save the day.
This started off very strong with a fun spoof of James Bond-type spy movies with Dabney Coleman playing a secret agent using funny gimmicks in a short action scene.After that it settled down into a story of a young boy, "Davey Osborne," (Henry Thomas) who accidentally stumbles onto real-life spies and with the help of his imaginary super-hero, eludes them as they chase him down.The familiar storyline of nobody believing the young boy got tiresome quickly and the cloak- and-dagger scenes were too juvenile for adults to enjoy.
The kids might like as the focus is entirely on "Davey" and his little friend "Kim," who, by the way, is very annoying and a poor actress.
Coleman, meanwhile, plays a double role: the "invisible" hero and "Davey's" real-life father..
The truth is when I think of Henry Thomas, I don't immediately think of E.T., but of CLOAK & DAGGER, which was one of my favorite films as a kid and will forever be one of my favorites.
CLOAK & DAGGER was a video game I believe (well, it is in the movie).
Henry Thomas stars as Davy Osbourne, an imaginitive 11-year-old who loves his favorite superhero Jack Flack, who he likes to view as his make-believe hero.
Set in San Antonio during the summer, the film has Thomas going to run an errand for a friend, and owner of a computer store, and gets involved in something he never dreamed of: a real-life game involving spies and a video game.
No one will believe him after he reports of a man being shot and murdered in front of his own eyes, including his own father an Air Force sergeant, played just wonderfully by Dabney Coleman, who I've enjoyed in everything from 9 to 5 to Tootsie.
This movie is kind of a more realistic version of Spy Kids even though this one is a bit hard to believe in its own right.
The story revolves around a boy who has an imaginary friend called Jack Flack a character from this spy game the kid loves (kind of a dungeons and dragons game).
The kid gets his hands on a video game that has some sort of secret as this killers are on his tail to get the game back and they do kill people along the way.
Starting a good premisse and walking an unusual ground the picture for some reasons never take off,a mix of juvenile action with a parallel word won't convince anyone,besides Dabney Coleman was maked by previous works as a crook is totally miscasting for this role,the high point are two old characters who stolen the show easily Jeanette Nolan and John McIntire and the rare opportunity to visit the legendary "The Alamo"at least on a brief time on TV.,and for those who loves Land of the Giants like me pay attention on Airport security chief.....Linden Chiles...Joe/Logar in the episode The Flight Plan,a bit too old...so good memories!!Resume:First watch: 1986 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 6.5.
Henry Thomas was much better in E.T., and even he seems to realize there just isn't much to work with in this tired story of the boy with a penchant for fantasy who isn't believed when something rather fantastic actually happens.
Just like in E.T., Henry Thomas did a great job, but, unfortunately, that didn't really make the story any better.The story did have some hidden potential, but they could have found a better, not so violent (or just change the rating), way to carry it out, and they could have found better actors to do it with.I did think at the beginning of that garage scene where Davey has to drive with one of the bad guys' cars was pretty darn funny.
It is really horrible with bad adult acting, bad child acting, bad bit-part acting, bad wardrobe, bad directing, bad plot development and a horrible film score that would be more appropriate for one of those ABC Afterschool Specials.Obsolete Atari 8-bit computers and games are prominently featured, which might make it slightly interesting in a retro way.
It's also a very good cleverly crafted suspense thriller.The premise is great and something a bit different because this time instead of a singular adult inadvertently getting into danger it's a kid which is something at the time I never saw much in suspense thrillers.Henry Thomas is great in this film it's a shame he didn't become a bigger star in the 80's.
One favorite moment is seeing him play a bit of a copy of the "Cloak and Dagger" game for the "Atari 5800"; for the record that's actually a real video game that I played in the arcade, I was so disappointed that the cartridges never got released due to the video game crash.He's got charisma, smart, imaginative.
I really like that one speech he gives to Davey about heroism which I thought was great because it's true, heroes don't always save the day but do even the smallest tasks to make life better for everyone, heck even when "Superman" has to go home and does some chores or run arrons to make his life with Lois and his son Johnathan better.
However once the dad begins to believe his son and does what he has to do to help him, in a way it cements that Jack and the Dad became one and the same a hero to Davey.The film in a way is a bit of a wishforfillment fantasy, though same can be said about most other suspense thrillers as most of them always feature a protagonist whom is an everyday person living a rather uneventful existence being thrust into action without asking in a way represents the subconscious desire to escape it or simply get more out of life.
It makes sense that he wouldn't drive too smoothly after all Davey hasn't gone to drivers ed, the only thing close to it would be playing the video game "Pole Position".
As the adventure goes on Davey actually starts to grow up a little when he becomes a little disillusioned he realizes the hard way that the predicament he's in isn't a game, he's in real mortal danger so there are no second chances.The films messages are about learning to take on life on your own.
This movie takes place in San Antonio, Tex., which was the nearest city to Henry Thomas's real-life home.
Another film that my friend lent me, man, it's like she lent me the Brady Bunch variety pack of family friendly movies.
That it was so adorable and a great family film, so she lent it to me and here is my review.It's about this boy, Davey, and his imaginary friend, Jack Flack.
Together they go on an adventure when Davey is in a hospital and sees a scientist who has just been shot and gives him a "Cloak and Dagger" game cover and tells him it's top secret.
Henry Thomas (of E.T. fame) is a young boy who would rather live in the fantasy world with imaginary friend Jack Flack (a character from various spy games played brilliantly by Dabney Coleman) than the real world with his Air Force father (also played by Coleman).
But when some bad guys led by Michael Murphy kill a man and Thomas is the only witness, he gets involved in a high stakes game that appears to be another fantasy to everyone else.
Henry Thomas's character does act disturbed by some of them, which may lend empathy to the viewer.Like any movie where there is some violence, I would view this along with your children, rather than allow them to see it alone..
Kids thriller in the tradition of Hardy Boys with Thomas on the run from killers.
The whole thing is rather gimmicky and silly, but you'll be entertained by the always durable Coleman in two roles, as a figment of Thomas' video game playing imagination and as his father.
Davey Osborne (Henry Thomas) lives in an imaginary world playing a game with superspy Jack Flack (Dabney Coleman).
He witnesses a murder and the victim gives Davey a Cloak & Dagger video game cartridge.
When the bad guys come after him, he turns to his friend Morris (William Forsythe) who runs the video game store at the mall.
The bad guys kidnap his friend Kim and offers up a trade.Video game movies do have a bad reputation.
This is a good kids movie with or without the video game tie-in.
It is always great for a kids movie to have the adults not believe in the kid hero.
'Cloak and Dagger' is the best American movie, I have ever watched.
At the end of this movie is a great explosion, and the boy thinks, his hero is dead, but he is alive.
I will keep this videotape as strong as the boy did keep his computer-game 'Cloak and Dagger'.
I like seeing a young kid outwitting older people and this movie delivers that.I recommend this movie to anyone who is a fan of ET,children's movies,or any adult that wants to try a different type of action flick.
I remembered seeing this movie as a kid, that iconic opening scene where Jack fights off three guys and a beautiful woman gets shot in the breast.
Anyway, after witnessing a murder, a mortally wounded guy in a white lab-coat gives him a Cloak & Dagger cartridge, with the whole "it's too late for me, take it and run!" bit we've seen a thousand times.
What interests me is how powerful Jack is for an imaginary friend, who shares the same actor as the boy's father.
Which implies the boy secretly wants his father to play with him instead of Jack.
The question I want to raise is how "real" is the little boy Davey's imaginary friend Jack Flack.
Then, toward the end, a couple of incidents occur that make you believe that Jack Flack may have a certain level of reality beyond the boy's imagination.
Jack stands up but Davey is angry that he has been forced to kill a man and tells him he doesn't want to play any more.
I couldn't disagree more on this...While I agree that 'Cloak & Dagger' has minor plot similarities with 'The Window' (a little boy with a vivid imagination who witnesses a crime but isn't believed by anybody), the rest is completely different.
There are no video-games or 'Cloaks and Daggers'.
The runtime is also far shorter and the movie is noir.In 'Cloak & Dagger', the kid is more grown-up and is not a teller of tall tales.
It takes place in the 80's and there are typically 80's video-games (like 'Cloak & Dagger').
Plus, as Davey says shortly before, he doesn't want to "play" anymore.Henry Thomas (best known as "Elliott" from 'E.T.') is the star of this film.
This man, before dying, gives Davey a 'Cloak & Dagger' video-game cartridge and reveals what it contains.
Davey has one make-believe friend (Jack Flack) who doesn't always give good advices.