The Medusa Touch

Gold's Midas touch with prestige TV material here for once transfers to the big screen with a full-blooded approach to the most implausible hokum. A skilful blend of the familiar (casting, English locations) and the outrageous (the script's mix of whodunit, disaster movie and telekinetic thriller) produces a beguiling entertainment in which half the fun's to be had from constructing a coherent synopsis out of the loony mess of flashback, foresight, eccentricity and even ecology. Ventura's a French sleuth on Common Market secondment to the Yard; Burton's a mysteriously troubled author with murderous mental powers. Watch for the bouncing cathedral bricks at the end.