Even if he hasn't turned out much of a film, writer-producer-director James (The Exterminator) Glickenhaus has demonstrated a certain amount of prescience with his scenario of strained U.S.-Israeli relations. In this often bloody spy thriller, however, affairs verge on war. A mysterious band of terrorists has swiped plutonium, made a warhead, and planted it smack-dab in the middle of the Saudi Arabian oil fields, threatening to blow up a large part of the world's petroleum supplies unless Israel abandons the West Bank. Israel tells the terrorists to go to hell. At this point the U.S., through a clandestine CIA connection, unleashes the codenamed "Soldier," Ken (Fort Apache, the Bronx) Wahl, and his own band of good-guy terrorists to sabotage the bomb plot. Meanwhile the U.S. prepares to use its military might to dislodge Israel from the West Bank rather than lose all that oil. Things get even more complicated. Wahl manages to round up his group, plus pretty Israeli intelligence agent Alberta Watson (who occasionally seems to be giving the stone-faced Wahl acting lessons). Then he moves to take over a U.S. atomic missile site, taking aim at the bad guys' home base. He hopes to smash the plot before America and Israel start slugging it out. Come to think of it, the movie does have one real asset—it is so convoluted that it makes real Mideast politics seem uncomplicated. (R)
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