Distasteful British film from a Japanese novel about a very troubled young man who comes under the influence of a Hitler-like classmate and plots to harm his widowed mother's lover. A couple of good scenes (Sarah Miles discovering her son has been peeping at her and confronts him in anger, the pasty-faced lad trying to ensnare Kris Kristofferson to his demise by being extra friendly), but what's the point beyond provoking shock? Ugly and uneasy, it doesn't showcase anyone involved to any advantage (especially Kristofferson, whose hollow stares and usual gravelly talk is out-of-place in a psychological mishmash like this one). Coldly without any sense of its own absurdity, director Lewis John Carlino seems to believe a circumstance like this could actually happen. If he's right, that's far more shocking than anything in "Sailor". * from ****