Prime Risk (1985)

Director:

Michael Farkas

Writer:

Michael Farkas (writer)

Release Date:

April 1985 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A female engineer, with the assistance of her pilot-wannabe male friend, discovers a way to rip off ATM machines, but in doing so stumbles upon a plot to destroy the U.S. monetary system. |

Plot Keywords:

Interrogation | Bare Chested Male | Face Slap | Needle | Bare Chested Male Bondage

Cast

Lee Montgomery	...	Michael Fox
Toni Hudson	...	Julie Collins
Sam Bottoms	...	Bill Yeoman (as Samuel Bottoms)
Clu Gulager	...	Paul Minsky
Keenan Wynn	...	Dr. Lasser
Lois Hall	...	Dr. Holt
Rick Rakowski	...	John
John Lykes	...	Vance
James O'Connell	...	Terry Franklin
Randy Pearlman	...	Ed Harrington
Timothy Rice	...	Albert Fishburn
Roy Stuart	...	Mr. Fox
Helen Duffy	...	Mrs. Fox
Christopher Murphy	...	Tony Nelson
Caron Tate	...	Bank Teller

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Finland:K-12 | UK:PG | USA:PG-13 | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Culpeper, Virginia, USA

Company:

Mikas 1

Quotes:

Bank Teller: We only accept *rolled* coins.
Michael Fox: Don't you have a machine to do that?
Bank Teller: I'm sorry, we don't provide that service to our customers.

Somebody made a good low budget movie

This movie excels in its class. Money can't buy everything, but it can usually buy a better film. Despite the handicap of a low budget, this one is entertaining, well paced, well cut, and surprisingly free of the absurd movements similar low budget movies usually end up with.

The flying sequences work a hundred times better than those in Time Chasers, another 80s movie which looked and sounded a lot like Prime Risk but ended up being a lot sillier. Hey it's an 80s movie, scenes of sneaking around and hinging crucial plot points on pushing people into the back of various vehicles were mandatory back then.

Most interesting of all was that the hacker elements were actually technically feasible for once. The main character learns to clone ATM cards, and in the process comes across a bigger operation run by the commies, which almost takes out the U.S. banking system. The main character understands circuit level functioning of the Z80 processor and know her way around a frequency counter. Oh yeah, did I mention the hacker in this movie is a woman? The male characters were made amazingly one-dimensional so that she could steamroll over them, but still, this was quite a role for the time, especially compared to the whiny 'What's a moddemmm?' girl in War Games.

Yeah there are some small goofs here and there, and the plot falls back on some well-worn Hollywood conceits.. but still.. It's worth watching.. and there is a TTY machine in the opening credits!.. and many, many, many reel-to-reel computer tapes!