The follow-up vehicle to Whoopi Goldberg's Oscar-nominated performance in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple (she finally won an Oscar for her role in Ghost) marked a dramatic change of pace and a role more akin to her wacky, wisecracking, alternative comedy persona. An uneven comedy spy thriller, its main problem is that Whoopi's character, a hapless bank employee who receives messages from a British spy trapped behind the Iron Curtain, is just too small for her personality. And Penny Marshall (later to make Big, but here in her debut as a director) was unable (or unwilling) to keep her star's wilder excesses in check. But there are still some comic gems, notably the scenes where Whoopi gatecrashes a ball at the British Embassy in New York by impersonating Diana Ross, and when her dress gets caught in an office shredder. A real curate's egg that leaves you wishing the rest of the film had matched its high points of hilarity.

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