Why is it that paranoid cold-war spy films were more numerous in the mid-80s than at any other period since the worst days of McCarthyism? Mulling this question over makes for a better use of time than sitting through this glib, repulsive thriller, another Frederick Forsyth special. Adapted from his fifth novel by Forsyth himself (who also coproduced), the picture concerns a Soviet spy who is smuggling an atomic bomb into England piece by piece while a British agent tries to track him down. Overlong, alternately nasty and tedious, with uniformly colorless and humorless characters; neither director John Mackenzie nor actors Michael Caine, Pierce Brosnan, Ned Beatty, and Joanna Cassidy can juice up the proceedings. (JR)