SPREE

US/Mexico, 1980, 98 minutes, Colour.
Ray Milland, Peter Graves, Vincent Van Patten.
Directed by Larry Spiegel.

Spree is a very average action adventure, an American-Mexican? co-production with interesting Mexican locations. A cast of youngsters acts in the typical brash way of the '710s. The sinister adults are Peter Graves and Ray Milland. There are fights and crises in the Mexican desert over drug-smuggling. Routine adventure.

1. Enjoyment value of this kind of film? Routine - echoing many television films and episodes? The elements of exploitation for the young and popular audience?

2. Californian backgrounds? The use of Mexican locations? The desert, the mountains, the landscapes - and the way that they were used for the action? Atmospheric score?

3. The various strands worked into the screenplay: youth, sex, drugs, violence, big business and ruthlessness?

4. The introduction and the various elements presented: drug couriers, big syndicates and hit men, violence and murder, California and Mexico as drug bases? The youngsters and their attitudes, relationships, clashes? Going off in the campervan?

5. The introduction to the kids: school, sport, locker rooms, home? The boys and the girls - and their decision to go on a spree? How well delineated the particular characters? Their fights and clashes? Sexual relationships? The accident and their having to cope? Wandering the desert? The emergence of the various kinds of leadership? Clowning? The values being tested? Ingenuity and the more serious tone to the film?

6. The background of drugs, murders, the police? The professor and his icy friendliness, his ruthlessness? The murderer's bodyguard? The leader and his seeming to be pleasant but a corresponding ruthlessness? The Cubans and the guards? The elements of violence. sex and rape, murder? Callous atmosphere and tensions building? The variety of chases and the emphasis on the skill of the vehicles - deaths?

7. Chip as hero and his dealing? Brian and Diane and their flirting, snooping, escaping? The shooting? Sal and his girlfriend - laughs, permissiveness, values? The girl and her sexuality and rape, violence? The repercussions for kids having gone on a spree?

8. Deals and their plausibility, the helicopters?

9. The chases and the action sequences and their effectiveness?

10. The challenge for the youngsters and their being saved? The overcoming of the villains? The conventional elements for routine adventure - how well did they mesh, how entertaining?