Windmills of the Gods (1988) User Reviews (4)

Terra Incognita

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 24 February 2008]

Jaclyn Smith is a professor at a Midwestern university. When her husband is killed in an accident, she feels adrift and accepts an appointment as ambassador to Rumania, hauling her young daughter (Ari Meyers) along. It's a tough job. I mean -- who knows anything about Rumania? It sounds a little like a mental illness. "I think he has a touch of Rumania." Smith must learn to speak Rumanian, which is at least a Romance language descended from Latin, like French, Italian, and Spanish, but is after all pretty historically remote from its source. Then, in Bucharest, she meets her chief aid, a cocky, unshaven Robert Wagner, who quickly straightens up and flies right. She also meets a simpatico Christopher Casanove, who is working for the wrong side, unknown to her. R. J. Wagner straightens THAT problem out pronto. There's a lot of intrigue, which I won't go into.

Jaclyn Smith, her daughter, and just about everyone at the American embassy is being stalked by an assassin known only as "Angel," whom the novel describes as "fat, ugly, and stupid." (The part was offered to me for reasons I can't imagine.) The victims are to be blown up at an embassy party. I won't disclose the means. The climactic chase and resolution involves the Marine embassy guards and the explosion is prevented by Skylight Ex Machina.

What's most impressive about the film, aside from Jaclyn Smith's supernal beauty, is the way the director and photographer have turned Wilmington, North Carolina, into Bucharest. (They didn't do such a hot job of turning Wilmington into Kansas. Nobody could.) Wilmington, a charming, relaxed Southern town, really LOOKS like Rumania. An old warehouse down by the docks is convincingly turned into an infamous prison. There are enough old mansions scattered around that it must have been easy to pick one of particular splendor to serve as the embassy.

The Marine guards were real Marines, recruited from nearby Camp Lejeune, where I taught night classes. Nice guys too. Many of the guests at the embassy party were genuine ethnics. The guy in the Arab head dress was ethnically Arab, for instance. The background persons were asked to speak in foreign languages if they could. I was teamed with a young French woman and, conversationally, rattled off the lyrics to "Chevalier de la Table Ronde," adding what I thought was an appropriately fatalistic Gallic shrug from time to time. "I haven't heard zat seence I was a child," she said. I suppose many others were doing the same thing.

As a miniseries, it doesn't lack for pace. It's exotic-looking, mysterious, exciting, and pretty propulsive.

Fast, exciting...thriller a'la Sheldon's books....

[speedo68 · 22 February 2004]

This is one of the best adaptation of Sidney Sheldon's books. It's fast, exciting, great locales, appealing characters and enjoyable from start to finish.

This is Smith's first foray in this genre. Her on-screen chemistry with "Mr.Cool" himself, Robert Wagner is one of the reasons why this miniseries works.

An all star cast miniseries.

Ughhh

[nicklesu · 1/10 · 2 November 2022]

Ok, I *may* have seen this on tv when it first aired, and if I did I *may* have liked it. I do like many of the actors involved. But watching it now in 2022 it's terrible.

My first impression was about the music. Worst. "Music." Ever. Then I decided to lookup what year it was made - 1988 - as it really feels like it was the late seventies; not in clothing styles nor anything else obviously seventies, but just how it feels.

Again, coming at it from 2022 it's just sooo unbelievably plotted that it's nearly unwatchable. Add to that that it's on streaming platform Freevee with poorly placed commercials every few minutes and it becomes entirely unwatchable.

Avoid this made-for-tv pablum from a bygone era.

Jaclyn Smith is wonderful

[markjayaweera · 8/10 · 18 November 2020]

Where to begin. This is wonderful TV miniseries thriller another gem from the decade of the American tv miniseries. The 1980s. Full of plot twists and turns. Wonderfully paced and acted, Its two one and a half hour episodes. But there is not a single boring moment to be had. You can watch it in one three-hour sitting and the time will go very quickly. Jaclyn Smith is one of the best American actresses of that decade the 1980s. She shows her considerable talent and beauty in spades. Jaclyn Smith was not on the big screen so much but most of her work was done on the tv movies on the small screen. I saw her excellent performance as Florence Nightingale in the TV movie from 1985 of the same name. By this time she is a mature performer. Robert Wagner was also very good in this. But Jaclyn Smith stole the show and lit up the screen in every scene she is in. I will be checking out her other work from this decade on television as I am very impressed by her as a performer. You can catch this mini series on DVD. Or if you are lucky you could be channel surfing one day and you can pick it up on cable television. Watching this tv miniseries with Jaclyn Smith in the lead role is time well spent in front of the box.