Bedevilled by production problems (constant script changes, disenchanted Brad Pitt wanting to quit, changes in the political situation while shooting), it's hardly surprising that this IRA thriller is a fudged disappointment. Harrison Ford plays the New York cop who takes Irish émigré Pitt into his home without realising he's a wanted terrorist on a missile-buying mission for the Republican cause. The tension in director Alan J Pakula's film is supposed to emerge from Pitt taking to Ford's family and establishing an emotional bond with the father figure he never had, but this relationship is not enough to deflect him from his single-minded purpose. In the end, this is both dramatically and politically incorrect.

Frankie McGuire, one of the IRA's deadliest assassins, draws an American family into the crossfire of terrorism. But when he is sent to the U.S. to buy weapons, Frankie is housed with the family of Tom O'Meara, a New York cop who knows nothing about Frankie's real identity. Their surprising friendship, and Tom's growing suspicions, forces Frankie to choose between the promise of peace or a lifetime of murder.