GREAT SCOTT

George C. Scott stars as a barkeep on the colorful title island in the Caribbean. He roars and mumbles with a phony British accent-his Cornelius Wettering is actually a Dutch-Australian hiding out from who? That's part of the mystery here. Another involves William Petersen (Manhunter), who plays a security officer at the local American consulate. As Stephen Guer-in, Petersen is a moody brooder in existential despair over what? Curacao is about the ways people run from their pasts, and the script- by James David Buchanan based on his novel The Prince of Malta-is full of good hard-boiled dialogue and a meaty part worthy of Scott's latter-day bombastic acting style. It's also rare for a TV movie to take as much care as Curacao does to summon up the atmosphere of its foreign locale. Curacao is just gaudy escapism, but it's good gaudy escapism. B+

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