First Strike

My review was written in July 1987 after watching the program on Combat Video cassette.

"First Strike" is an oddity, a doomsday submarine thriller shot on videotape rather than film. Several horror programs as well as thousands of porno entries have been made this way for home video, but this 1984 production merely demonstrates the unsuitability of the technique for either a feature film or standard telefilm.

Shot in San Diego and West Germany, "First Strike" deals with a Soviet scheme to start World War III with the U. S. blamed and Soviet missiles getting the jump on their U. S. counterpart.

Persis Khambatta portrays the double agent actually working for the Russkies, who the U. S. gets back in a prisoner exchange and proceeds to take over Stuart Whitman's sub, the U. S. S. Cobra, itself on a secret mission in Leningrad harbor. Key plot device is that a CIA man has been selling U. S. sub launch codes to the Russians; these codes will be used to launch a missile from the Cobra with blame falling on America. A Soviet doublecross has Khambatta expendable, with a separate plan to wipe out the bulk of the U. S. fleet and take control of the Middle East for the USSR, with Syria's aid.

Pic involves some okay nail-biting scenes, in the paranoia format of a "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" tv episode. Open ending is very disappointing, as both superpowers back down from an ultimate exchange and the Cobra is left hanging as an embarrassment, being blamed in the public consumption cover story for launching missiles against Syria.

Very harsh studio lighting, unconvincing backdrops for the "exterior" scenes on the sub's bridge when surfaced and leaving all large-scale action off-screen makes "First Strike" unsatisfactory for its "The Bedford Incident" genre. Filmed stock footage at sea is printed down to be dull and drab, so as not to clash with the videotape original material. Use of tape is particularly unflattering to Khambatta, who also suffers from several awkward line readings. Electronic keyboard music score sounds like a track prepared for a silent film.