Okay, who knew Nixon was going to turn out to be a crook, besides anyone who watched his career.

Actually this isn't bad for an early 70's made for TV movie. Personally, I've always wondered why 1970's TV was so fond of brown cars and dull colors. It seems in the 1960's, they discovered color was this new thing and were very flamboyant about it, but in the 1970's, they went with "earth tones" and got bored wit the thing.

The plot is that an eccentric millionaire steals some Army Nerve gas, so potent they have to store it in binary form. Realizing a clever FBI agent is on to him, he sets up a series of contingencies to make sure his weapon goes off in San Diego when Richard Nixon (never specifically mentioned but obviously implied) is making his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.

The battle of wits between these two guys is very interesting, and this is before Hollywood learned how to milk such scenarios for every ounce of suspense.

Numerous people in the history of the film industry are overrated. Several ones are underrated, and then there's a small group of people that are massively, scandalously, and incomprehensibly underrated! In this last group sits writer/director Michael Crichton, although - admittedly - he would remain underrated even if he received a dozen of Oscars and a life-size statue on Hollywood Boulevard. That's how genius he was.

With "Pursuit" Crichton dropped off his calling card as a director. Two of his novels were previously adapted already, namely the stupendous "The Andromeda Strain" and the quirky "The Carey Treatment", but here Crichton decided to turn his own novel (written under a pseudonym name) into a film scenario and direct it himself. Being a modestly produced, short, and mainly dialogue-driven TV-movie, "Pursuit" was also the ideal rehearsal for Crichton's bigger and more legendary works "Westworld", "Coma", and "The First Great Train Robbery".

What anyone should admire about Michael Crichton is how his stories seem grotesque and unlikely to happen at first, but they are nevertheless brought in such a disturbingly realistic fashion that gradually the viewer gets persuaded that the top-event is inevitable from happening. The top-event can refer to robot-gunslingers in theme park turning against the human visitors, genetically engineered dinosaurs breaking out, or - in this case - one politically engaged psychopath being able to steal nerve gas from the government and conspire a large-scaled attack against the President and an entire city of innocent bystanders.

From the very first second and throughout the entire 75 minutes of running time, "Pursuit" is a tense edge-of-your-seat thriller with a stressful atmosphere and great performances of both Ben Gazzara and E. G. Marshal. Via the simple yet effective trick of occasionally showing a countdown-clock at the bottom of the screen, Crichton makes clear how urgent it's getting for CIA bulldog Steve Graves to apprehend the mysterious James Wright and figure out his terrorist scheme. A few little defaults here and there (like an ungracious exit for the lead villain) but mostly good stuff.

I read Binary, Pursuit's first title, published under the pseudonym John Lange. Crichton published under a pseudonym because he was afraid his med school instructors would doubt his dedication to medicine (at that time he still wanted to be a doctor). The title Pursuit was ordered by the studio, fearing that the public would not understand the title Binary, and the general incomprehension about biowarfare agents in 1972 help land Crichton the Director's job. First run as an ABC TV movie of the week. Pursuit is fast paced with a surprisingly high powered cast: EG Marshall, Wm Windom, Ben Gazarra, and a young Martin Sheen as what may very well be the first role as the small screen's first computer hacker. It's a good TV thriller at least thirty years ahead of its time