Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 26, 1993 TAG: 9309170421
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Tom Shales
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It's a miniseries series, a succession of multi-parters patterned after the paperback ``romance'' novels that feature chesty hunks caressing bosomy beauties on their covers. The promise of the books is that they will all be the same; if that's the case with the ``Great Escapes,'' we are in for one ridiculous ordeal after another.
NBC's publicity department wants us to think of this as not just a programming gimmick, but a potential tonic: ``Long hours at work ... bumper-to-bumper traffic ... rising taxes ... endless battles with the bulge. We all deserve to get away - even if only for an hour or two.''
True, we all do deserve to get away from those things. But the list is incomplete. What about trashy television? It's right up there with rising taxes and bumper-to-bumper traffic. What ``Great Escapes'' really promises is endless battles with the bilge.
``Trade Winds'' is the name not only of the first miniseries (five chapters long, the first being two hours), it's also a supposedly fabulous resort on the Caribbean island of St. Martin. There, two warring families, the Sommerses and the Philipses, have formed an uneasy truce (are there never to be any easy truces?) that involves a struggle for control of the lush hot property and a big rum empire.
And wouldn't you know, they have a Romeo and a Juliet blooming right in their midst. Beautiful and headstrong Maxine Philips (Michael Michele) is begrudgingly engaged to squirrelly attorney Joseph Gabetti (Dean Tarrolly) but really loves dashing and headstrong playboy Ocean Sommers (Michael McLafferty), who can boast the most exposed pectoral development in these here parts.
Maxine's handsome and headstrong brother Kyle (Allan Dean Moore) hates Ocean and conspires to break up the romance. Ocean, meanwhile, is busily trying to locate a sunken treasure left on the Caribbean's floor 300 years earlier when a Spanish galleon went glub glub glub, though not before its surviving crew members turned into a pack of berserk cannibals.
Christof von Philips (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), the aging yet still headstrong family patriarch, warns that death awaits he who dares to plunder the sea, at least according to a visitation he had years earlier. Seems he saw the figure of death stalking him at an open market, which can critically inhibit one's shopping.
``Finally,'' he tells his grandson, ``I lost him down an alley.'' Whew, a close one!
Unfortunately, there are so many characters in ``Trade Winds,'' and some of the relationships so nebulous, that it's hard to keep track of who's whose. One good thing about the story is that the Philips clan is matter-of-factly inter-racial, and none of the bickering is done along racial lines. They're greedy, underhanded and double-dealing, but they aren't bigots.
Hugh Bush wrote the dizzy script, dull Charles Jarrott directed, and Douglas S. Cramer, long associated with ``Dynasty,'' is the executive producer. Theirs is the kind of film that guarantees you no real surprises, so that when one character says reassuringly, ``Look, nothing bad is going to happen, okay?,'' you know for sure that the poor guy's number is just about up.
One surprise is how little lustiness brews in this tempestuous teapot. The filmmakers are so busy with financial shenanigans and voodoo curses that they neglect the heavy breathing. The shapeliest women in the cast were issued bikinis, however, and thoughtfully take turns modeling them.
For all their flaming passions and snappy tans, the people of ``Trade Winds'' are really not quite fascinating. Seldom have so many headstrong characters seemed so feebleminded. Viewers may find themselves wishing for a big blustery tropical storm to come along and blow them all away.
There never seems to be a hurricane around when you really need one.
\ Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB