Edwards, a veterinary student at UCLA, has little luck with either classes or romance. His only real college success comes when he plays the game "Gotcha," a strange on-campus sport in which students stalk one another with pellet guns, shooting capsules of paint rather than bullets at
victims. Edwards and his pal Corri head to Paris for a summer vacation, where Edwards meets Fiorentino in a small cafe. Fiorentino, speaking with a mysterious accent, claims to be a Czechoslovakian working as a courier for an unnamed company. The two instantly begin an affair, and of course it
turns out that Fiorentino is a spy using the unwitting Edwards in her mission. The international intrigue goes from Paris to Berlin and back to southern California, where Edwards is forced to apply his skills in the game Gotcha to fight the KGB. GOTCHA is a hopelessly shallow film, serving up a
good deal of hokum in the ridiculous plot. It's a contrived idea to start with, and the script goes through predictable twist after twist until the inevitable conclusion. Edwards, and especially Fiorentino, are good in their roles, considering the severe limitations the film imposes. Shot on
location in Paris and Berlin, the more interesting intrigues in this film definitely took place offscreen. The official borderline between West and East Germany was considered to be 10 feet in front of the Berlin Wall, a zone the filmmakers were forbidden to enter. Because the production was not
allowed to cross into East Berlin, a replica of the wall from the eastern point of view had to be built just a few feet in front of the west side.
