SO I WAS IN THE VIDEO STORE THIS MORNING, AND I DISCOVERED A COPY OF "THE FURY," Brian DePalma’s 1979 sci-fi thriller, tucked away on a bottom shelf. Thank God for all the old independently-owned video stores in Brooklyn. Anyway, I rented it, watched it, loved it, and then broke the tape while rewinding it. Now, it’s entirely possible that the tape can be fixed, but it’s an old tape—produced in 1980 by a company I’ve never heard of called “Magnetic Video,” and feels like it weighs five pounds. A tab for one of the spools got yanked out by the tape rewinder, and now it plinks around inside of the frame like one of those little metal balls in a pachinko machine. So I’m writing about the movie now, because it’s great, it’s probably tough to find, there’s a good chance I’ve derived future generations of the copy that was in my store, and the details are still fresh.

“The Fury” opens in 1975, in the Mid East. Government agent Peter (Kirk Douglas) loses a swimming race to his son Robin. After they wrestle on the beach for a while, in full view of Peter’s best friend Childress (John Cassavetes), father and son sit down for an important chat. Seems they’ve been living out there in the Mid East for quite a while, but they’re finally going back to the States. Robin will be attending a school called the “Paragon Institute” in Chicago, which specializes in children with extraordinary gifts. It seems Robin has quite the extraordinary gift: psychic power. He’s still quite latent, but Childress thinks the Paragon Institute is the perfect setting for Robin, where he’ll be able to develop his gift to its fullest.

Then some Arabs attack. Peter and Robin get separated, and things look pretty hairy for the old man. However, since he’s a highly-trained government agent, he manages to kill off most of the attackers, then mounts a motorboat so he ride out to Robin. But the boat explodes, killing Peter. Robin is traumatized. Peter’s friend quickly has guys from the agency whisk Robin to safety, then he stays behind to consult some of the pro-American militia. It turns out—Da-da-DAH!—Peter’s supposed friend planned the attack. Peter turns up alive, shoots his supposed friend in the arm, then escapes to plan his next move.

Fade-in to Chicago, 1979. A young woman named Gillian hears voices talking to her when she’s on a crowded boardwalk. Later, at the private school she attends, a scientist from the Paragon Institute named Hester performs an experiment on bio-feedback. She asks for volunteers; on a whim, Gillian agrees to be her guinea pig. Not only does she exhibit extraordinary bio-feedback, but she has a startling vision of someone she’s never met before. Hester is clearly interested in Gillian’s potential.

Next we see some feds tapping phones. It turns out Peter is in the area, and he’s been trying to find out the whereabouts of his son for the past four years. Feds storm Peter’s apartment, and he gets out with only his boxers and a gun. He sneaks into the apartment of an old couple and their mother-in-law. The scene between Peter and these strangers, who are more annoyed than terrified of him, demonstrates DePalma’s truly weird sense of humor. When Peter first walks in on them, brandishing his gun, they tell him they don’t have much money. Peter assures them he doesn’t want money, only clothes. “I had to leave my hotel room on short notice,” he says. “Anything you got will do. Some old clothes, perhaps.” “Old clothes, huh?” replies the husband. Then Peter reaches into his pocket, realizes he doesn’t have any in his boxers, and adds, “Oh, uh, as you can see, my pants are still in my hotel room. Would you be able to spare a few bucks?” The husband does one of those “That figures,” eye-rolling bits. Funny stuff.

Peter eventually leaves the apartment, after donning a disguise, but not before explaining his mission to the mother-in-law. “I packed you some cookies for your trip,” she tells him, handing him a paper sack. “I hope you find your son. And if those FBI guys get in your way, SHOOT ‘EM! That’s what they all deserve.” Also very funny.

Back to Gillain: After getting pissed off at a classmate and causing her nose to bleed profusely, she goes for tests at the Paragon Institute. The researchers there (led by Charles Durning) are impressed by her powers. Most subject they get are “fakers,” as Hester tells her, but Gillian seems to be the real thing. Not only does she have a gift for channeling electricity—which caused her classmate’s nosebleed—they discover she has a psychic link to Robin. Walking around the Institute grounds, she can see the place through his eyes. An especially powerful vision features Robin falling out a window, possibly to his death. The doctors at the Paragon Institute find this unexplainable link remarkable, as does Peter’s traitorous ex-friend Childress, who always seems to be lurking in the shadows.

I won’t give away much more of this wonderful film, save to say there is a team-up, a journey to Childress’ secret base, and a truly explosive ending. I really hope this movie is available on DVD, because everyone should go out and rent it right now! How strange that it’s rarely brought up by DePalma fans, even in film mag articles about him. But it certainly belongs in the director’s oeuvre. More than the technically-proficient and well-executed set-pieces (Long tracking shots, crane shots that start on high then lower to the ground, a la “Scarface”), more than the aforementioned strange humor, more than the occasional Hitchcockian aesthetics (Sequences that progress in aching slow-motion while booming melodramatic music plays in the background)—“The Fury” drips with DePalma’s pessimistic worldview. DePalma and his screenwriter imagine a world where the government will not hesitate to kill a father and steal his child, should that progeny display, as Childress says, “the potential of an atomic bomb.” Childress and his unmentioned agency raise their gifted youth in the posh seat of royalty, but in the process, they destroy their souls. They create amoral, insane killers who lash out with their powers in an attempt to fill their own personal emptiness.

As a final show of DePalma’s unsettling worldview, Peter is coerced into what he thinks is a reunion with his son. But love does not triumph over all in DePalma-land. Like his conspiracy flick “Blow-Out,” which was released three years after “The Fury” in 1981, the noblest intentions mean nothing here. In DePalma-land, those who wield the power are the ones who win out. While that doesn’t mean Childress the puppet master gets to walk away clean, justice in this movie has more to do with inevitable comeuppance than reassuring the audience of its values. They can go to Spielberg for that.