Reducto ad Absurdum

Recently, some talented filmmakers and production companies have shown that it is no longer inevitable that film adaptations of books must suck. Look at The Harry Potter films, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, most of the movies based on John Grisham novels, and you'll see what I mean. As exceptions prove rules, these good film adaptations only bring more clearly into focus the rule that book to TV movie adaptations are seemingly written by people who think that those of us who occasion to watch TV are idiots.

Unfortunately for Gayle Lynds, the TV movie version of Robert Ludlum's COVERT ONE: The Hades Factor falls into the rule category and is in no way exceptional. The film meanders around like a drunken sailor on the deck of the Titanic during a monsoon. The similarity between the plot of the film and that of the book seems to be derived mainly from some astute person writing down all the names of the Covert One series characters and then asking their 4 year old to pen brief biographies of them based on their memory of exactly what it was that their parents prattled off to them during bedtime story time.

Now, I read the Hades Factor more than a year ago, and maybe I'm being harsh to the "film"'s writers here, but the reason that the book was compelling is that it treated readers, if not like adults, then at least like high school students. Allowing us to come along for an enjoyable spy thriller about a terror crisis that causes the president to go outside normal national security structure and retain the services of some specialists that become the "Covert One" team. The tension between the various three-letter agencies (all working on the case and, in a true-to-life stroke, sometimes at cross purposes) is part of that fun.

The movie tries to build that tension while "streamlining" out the internecine fight subplots. It does so by adding in new characters in subplots so convoluted that if they were entirely excised, in say a directors cut, or maybe a sober person's cut, they would not be missed.

Dean Koontz once offered a production company money to take his name off of a film version of his book. Robert Ludlum is not in a position to do so, but perhaps Gayle Lynds is. She should.


[After re-reading this screed, Eliel has committed himself to re-reading Robert Ludlum's The Hades Factor and will report back on his Books Blog shortly --Ed.]