Agent Orange never died — it just got a corporate rebrand and a tan.
Steve Woodman, a CIA official working for the United States Department of Agriculture, is gathering information about the illegal manufacture and use of Agent Orange, a defoliant used during the Vietnam War to destroy jungle growth and reveal enemy troops. But the lethal chemical proved to be a sentence worse than death for the babies born to anyone who came into contact with it. His investigations lead him to Africa and Clive Hyde, a bullying fertilizer baron whose greed for wealth far outweighs his social conscience. Posing as a journalist for an agricultural magazine, Steve suspects that it is Hyde's chemical plant that provides the crop spraying fertilizer used by the sugar cane farmers to make their crop grow taller. When the beautiful, young widow, Sarah Williams, shows Steve her stunted and grotesquely twisted vegetable crop, his suspicions are confirmed; and when he discovers Patrick and Maria's disfigured child he sets out to crush Hyde's illicit operation.
Production
Shot on location in South Africa during apartheid — the subtext writes itself.
Acting
Ron Smerczak's villainous sneer deserves its own billing.
Director
Robert Davies
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Filmed in 1989 South Africa with anti-apartheid sanctions in full swing; the production itself embodies the exploitation it pretends to critique.
TMDB's 2.0 rating with zero votes suggests this film barely exists in public record — possibly more obscure than the conspiracy it depicts.
US
