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In this 1983 film, director Sam Peckinpah serves up an arabesque plot, germ warfare, and paranoia to turn a quiet, unassuming weekend get-together into a Salvador Dali adventure involving a netherworld of bugged rooms and alleged spies and communists. The film is not easy to understand, thanks to the complexity of the plot and the mischievous mind of Peckinpah. But there is a smashing car chase for viewers who favor that sort of thing. The acting and dialogue are quite good, and no small amount of pleasure may be derived from attempting to fathom the motives of the characters and the roles of the CIA, the KGB, and a spy ring called Omega. CIA operative Lawrence Fasset (John Hurt) gets the plot going after Soviet agents in collusion with the CIA murder his wife. After enlisting the help of talk show host John Tanner (Rutger Hauer), Fasset and Tanner assemble a group of husbands and wives for a weekend of socializing at Tanner's home. Among the guests are operatives in the service of the KGB--supposedly--who may have had a hand in the death of Fasset's wife. The film then ventures into the bizarre Peckinpah world of plot twists and psychological surprises. Among the interlocutors with ambiguous tongues are Dennis Hopper as Richard Tremayne and Craig T. Nelson as Bernard Osterman. Viewers who enjoy solving the Rubik's Cube and The New York Times crossword puzzle will probably like this film, although it received mixed reviews from critics.