Word: alarmistic
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...Alarmist starts as a modified Robin Hood where "the den" is a circa 1954 sushi restaurant, and the merry men have been compressed into several burglar alarm salespeople bent on income redistribution. Anyone familiar with Los Angeles will realize the timeliness of their "rob the rich" scam in which Heinrich Grigoris (Greg Tucci) boosts the sales of his alarms by staging robberies in the neighborhoods of potential clients. The twist in Grigoris' scheme is Tommy, the new salesman played with adorable, bumbling style by David Arquette. A natural at the hook, the Tommy's moral sensibilities are deeply troubled...
Beyond this high-grade sitcom, one of the appealing possibilities of The Alarmist is the voyeurism offered by the "door-to-door salesman" frame. Sadly, the possibility of venturing into the mansions of West Los Angeles and meeting the natives remains largely unexploited. While Tommy does go door-to-door, the characters he encounters are not archetypal Angelenos, but a stereotypically elderly market. A little closer to the mark and this movie would have many movie-industry types squirming in their seats, but The Alarmist is estranged from the hip alarm-buying populous of aging baby boomers. Gale...
...scenes of romantic comedy and social satire are short-lived, ending abruptly when the movie takes a turn for the serious. Though the humor in the first part of The Alarmist is a little off-kilter, one hopes that it will be honed by the movie's conclusion. But that possibility is obliterated by the new murder mystery plot that takes over in the second half. Whatever credibility the script had up to that point is undermined by the oddity of the shift, making the movie a Quentin Tarantino imitation gone awry; the macabre violence and odd moralistic overtones undercut...
...Russia, only the radical Communists and Nationalists present a genuine threat of such a reverse. These groups depend for their legitimacy, like any alarmist political party, on the perception that Russia is threatened by international forces drawing together against her. Nothing more clearly could convey this impression than the invitation by NATO to these three countries to join an alliance designed specifically to oppose Russia...
...tricky part of the White House's Y2K political problem will be telling everyone there's no need to stockpile canned food -- while being alarmist enough to prod business leaders into action. "The consequences of the millennium bug, if not addressed, could simply be a rash of annoyances, like being unable to use a credit card at the supermarket," Clinton said. But the worst-case scenario? He added: "It could affect electric power, phone service, air travel, major governmental service." Not to mention Vice President Gore's presidential ambitions...