Lynn Whitfield gives a strong performance in the title role of Bill Duke's fact-based TV movie. Whitfield does an excellent job of portraying the emotional conflicts of a woman who discovers she has a unique talent for law-enforcement work. This pulls her away from her controlling husband... [More]

Lynn Whitfield gives a strong performance in the title role of Bill Duke's fact-based TV movie. Whitfield does an excellent job of portraying the emotional conflicts of a woman who discovers she has a unique talent for law-enforcement work. This pulls her away from her controlling husband (William Allen Young) and into a career in the FBI. There she meets Special Agent TC Russell (Howard Rollins) and begins a dangerous undercover operation. In attempting to snare some dangerous gunrunners, Gibson finds she is attracted to Adam Prentice (Richard Lawson), a charming criminal with whom she shares a similar background. As Gibson makes the difficult choice to pursue her career at the expense of her family, and as she struggles with her inappropriate feelings for Prentice, Whitfield makes her conflicts believable. That helps the film transcend its TV movie veneer (typified by obviously cleaned-up language and bloodless violence) and attain a surprising degree of emotional complexity. [Less]