And The Band Played On Details

This made-for-cable adaptation of Randy Shilts's monumental history of Aids is distractingly overloaded with stars, all too willing to prove their political correctness, Alan Alda, Ian McKellen, Richard Gere, Anjelica Huston, Steve Martin et al. But, taken as a detective story, it has still got a gripping narrative in which French and American scientists search to isolate the virus and seek to find the airline employee who may have brought it from Africa. Matthew Modine's clear-sighted visionary provides the necessary human focus, keeping his integrity while others lose theirs politicians deliberately underfund research and there's headline-seeking duplicity from one scientist. Director Roger Spottiswoode is hemmed in by too many statistics, yet still manages to produce a memorable and absorbing docudrama. And rounding out the film is an epilogue with clips of Elizabeth Taylor, Liberace, Denholm Elliott, Freddie Mercury, Magic Johnson, and Diana, Princess of Wales.

A confusing dramatization of Shilts's angry book on the first years of AIDS and the inactivity of the government and other organizations in dealing with it; it leaves one little wiser, though sadder, than before.