"T.A.G. The Assassination Game" (1982) a cable nugget

Our family got HBO for free during the 1980s. It was the Ronald Reagan era. Certain movies got lots of exposure thanks to the '80s cable landscape. These could get re-run often. I guess these movies could not break through on the big screen. Some have fallen back into obscurity since that era.
The boundless online universe of today opens the door to re-discovery. It opens the door to nostalgia.
We could not have have dreamt in the '80s that we'd someday view certain aspects of the era as being so dated. A defining part of nostalgia is that we notice "the old way" of living. The '80s movies thus reveal various nuggets. Such as, people smoking like it's quite acceptable nearly anywhere. We notice rotary telephones and people working "switchboards." We notice the clunky manual typewriters.
We notice hippies, not just people with the superficial traits but real hippies. The Robert Carradine character creates a distraction by announcing a Grateful Dead concert. But the distraction doesn't work until he revises the announcement to "the free Grateful Dead concert." So Carradine creates his distraction to help the Linda Hamilton character. The "free" enticement causes a hippie in the T.A.G. game to exit the scene. "He's slow but he's good," Hamilton said. He had a white mouse pet/companion.
The movie gave Hamilton her first feature film starring role. She and Carradine had chemistry. But it was Bruce Abbott, as the bad guy, with whom Linda developed real-life chemistry. The two became married.
1982's "T.A.G. The Assassination Game" had the alternate title "Everybody Gets It In the End." Carradine would go on to "Revenge of the Nerds" in which he was much thinner, not that he's overweight in "T.A.G." You'd hardly need reminding of Hamilton's future fame/roles, yes "Terminator" alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. I wonder how many "Terminator" viewers were reminded of "T.A.G."
Words can hardly describe my excitement discovering the movie in the online world over the weekend. So I took the nostalgia trip. One can scour the web further and find other '80s gems including "Super Fuzz" with the unforgettable Terence Hill and ubiquitous Ernest Borgnine.

Linda Hamilton in "T.A.G."

Watching "T.A.G.," we're transported into a world where no one makes a fuss about anyone smoking. Smoking is done casually and routinely.
I remember watching "T.A.G." back in the day and thinking it really captured the campus atmosphere of the times. To watch it now, the campus buildings seem old and utilitarian. And nobody cares. Everyone seems fundamentally content. To be more blunt, the young people don't come across as pampered or showered with amenities like the youth of today. Amenities? Well, let's consider the "climbing walls." The dormitories are plain Jane and who cares? Boomer generation kids were packed like sardines into those places.
 
It left an impression
I wouldn't be writing about "T.A.G." if it didn't have some real original spark. There are quirky characters, genuinely funny. This is juxtaposed with the serious plot element of murder.
OK there's a plausibility issue as so often emerges in movies. Maybe it's more serious here, as a sick individual cannot just use a firearm to kill a couple souls without serious issues of leaving evidence. There would be blood and the stench of a decaying corpse. Maybe 40 years ago we were more willing to give a pass on this kind of lapse. Might the lapse explain the movie's drop into obscurity?
Today's college students would do well to watch it and to notice the more mellow, less hurried or tense atmosphere. People seemed to just enjoy each other and react to each other sans all the electronic distractions of today.
The movie came out on VHS in the early '80s but copies are hard to find. What's the deal? Who owns the rights? So much budding young talent, e.g. Xander Berkley, Kristine DeBell, Michael Winslow and Forest Whitaker. Yes, we see "The Last King of Scotland!"
The musical score was an important part of the appeal for me. Here the credit goes to Craig Safan who gives us a theme that smacks of Peter Gunn, jazzy and even with a little "scream" trumpet.
Only cable TV consumers of the '80s would remember "T.A.G. The Assassination Game." Let's also consider "Eddie and the Cruisers" in the same light, indeed. Maybe "Eddie" is the best example of a movie that only found its footing with the burgeoning cable TV landscape. "Eddie" in its various iterations or releases was destined to fail on the big screen, this despite the big following it attracted. It even spawned a sequel. "Eddie II" was hammered by critics but when I finally saw it, by accident on - you guessed it - cable TV, I found it to be rather OK. Ah, the vicissitudes of entertainment. Remember, the Three Stooges found a whole new heyday thanks to "kiddie TV" of the 1950s.
 
Idyllic vision of the "press"
Part of the appeal of "T.A.G." for me, was that the heroic Carradine played a reporter. I'll theorize that this was a continuation of the Woodward/Bernstein thing, immortalized in "All the President's Men." We saw this is the Roy Scheider helicopter movie "Blue Thunder" too. Come to think of it, "Blue Thunder" was another '80s cable TV item. Scheider with Candy Clark. (I always had a hard time watching Scheider after "Marathon Man" for reasons I shouldn't have to explain.)
In "Blue Thunder" Scheider works with a TV reporter to expose government corruption! I must say as a former Fourth Estate person myself, writers had a far more exclusive position in our society then. Tell people you're a "reporter" and they got excited and deferred to you! You're special. Oh I'm serious, that's the way it was. Barely a hint of that is sensed anymore in the digital world. Today we create our own platforms and reach our desired audience, each and every one of us. We all "type" whereas in pre-digital times, typing skills were rare and associated with the feminine gender.
So, Carradine plays a reporter for the college newspaper, an entitled position that seems even to impress Hamilton. He writes for a paper because where else would he write? People's offices have a dingy look with piles of paper around because that's how we did business then. An office was a place where a lot of tedious work got done. No option of seeking a little online-based entertainment now and then.
Watching the movie today, I'm amazed at how I could anticipate certain lines as if not a day had passed! Should I be surprised? Hamilton turns to Carradine at one point and says "got that?"
Let's note that like all fine movies, the movie gives us symbolism and metaphors. Two of these make an impression IMHO. Carradine notes that Hamilton's interest in the T.A.G. game parallels how she approaches romance/relationships, like it's a game. Casual, take it or leave it. Carradine is able to push past her facade and make an impression.

We learn that the bad guy character once got psychologically devastated by finishing second in something. It was a music competition. First place had tons or rewards and second had essentially nothing. The guy internalized the message of "winning is everything." He extrapolated this to the game of T.A.G., a campus fad that involves dart guns. It's an elaborate hobby that has a supervisor with office, one of those quirky characters. It's hard to describe here. We see a game player who is a funny oddball and does sound effects.
 
The heroic mantle of writers/reporters
At one point a character is suspicious that Carradine is out to do an "expose." This is Watergate-borne commentary. Reporters were out there trying to ensure that forces of good prevailed. Today we have a president of the U.S. who rails about "fake news" and gets legions of admirers.
In "T.A.G." we see students at a raucous campus dance, enjoying a group performing "Born Dead." The movie pulls its viewers into an authentic campus setting of the '80s throughout. Fortunately the humor seems to prevail over the grim tone. The romance is plausible.
We see Carradine as hero at the end not with his typewriter but with his gun. The bad guy is dispatched.
The movie probably has the effect of making Hamilton look older in her later roles. Might this be a reason the movie seems to have disappeared? "T.A.G." would not have been the same with any other actress. She was wonderful. The opening is a perfect takeoff on .007 movies. An ingenue with a come hither look - it appears not to be Hamilton - is juxtaposed with images of a guy brandishing a pistol. Perfect. A guy gets cornered and shot in the opening scene, but the scene ends with levity as we see it's merely a rubber dart! The victim says "shit." Then we get the rousing big band theme, without which this movie wouldn't be the same either.
It all makes me feel like I'm once again in my late 20s or early 30s. I gave not a thought to Medicare back then. I ran an occasional 10K. Gee, maybe I could do it again, just by being whisked back in time by a movie? No. Nor can we get a classy gentleman back in the office of the president just by wishing. No, instead we have something else.
Ronnie Reagan, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
"T.A.G. The Assassination Game" was directed by Nick Castle. The movie has value just because it was a stepping stone for so much young talent. Yet it seems gone into the ether. What's the deal? Naturally the Internet can be the hero in all this, so today I can practically get misty watching it again, whoever put it there. Bless you.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com