`Barbarians At The Gate': Garner Makes It Rip-Roaring Fun

Even if you don't know a leveraged buyout from a junk bond, it won't keep you from enjoying HBO's outrageously funny "Barbarians at the Gate," the new TV movie someone termed a "docu-comedy," premiering at 8 p.m. Saturday, with repeats scheduled for March 23, 28, 31 and April 5 and 18.

The film is based on the best-seller by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar that chronicled the attempts of R. Ross Johnson to buy RJR Nabisco, the cigarette and food company of which he was C.E.O. It was, in many ways, the apex, the epitome of the high-flying, free-wheeling '80s when "Greed is Good" became the catch-phrase of the high-rollers.

Two things are paramount to the huge success of "Barbarians at the Gate": a hilarious performance by James Garner as Johnson and a dynamite script by Larry Gelbart. Anyone who saw Gelbart's brilliant satire of government hearings, "Mastergate," which aired on Showtime last year, will anticipate the havoc Gelbart can wreak on the world of Big Business and its practicioners.

The only bad thing about "Barbarians at the Gate" is that Gelbart makes us laugh so much at their neurotic machinations to become top dogs that it's easy to forget how much these same buffoons contributed to the problems of the American economy in the 1990s. Gelbart takes an approach that says it's too late to do anything except hold these folks up to the ridicule they deserve.

Johnson was a man with a staggering number of perks, a sexy young wife (Leilani Ferrer) and a lifestyle beyond Robin Leach's wildest dreams. When Johnson got wind of a possible takeover of the company by several big players, and feared his personal excesses might be curbed, he decided to enter the competition himself. The result is a Wall Street "High Noon," with cellular phones as the weapon of choice.

What keeps this so much fun is Gelbart's scathing portrayals of these types as so many Armani-suited jackals and the first-rate portrayals of them, under Glenn Jordan's lively direction, by such performers as Peter Riegert, Joanna Cassidy, Jeffrey DeMunn, Fred Dalton Thompson, Matt Clark, David Rasche and especially Broadway's Jonathan Pryce as Henry Kravis, the most dangerous of all the players.

But it's Garner as Johnson who steals the film. His Johnson is just as crafty as the rest but he loves portraying himself as just an aw-shucks country boy who isn't very good at this game. He also has a unique way of assessing every situation - and his use of language is one reason "Barbarians at the Gate" is a lot funnier on cable than it would have been on commercial TV. This is one TV movie that would have played just as well on the big screen. Cheers all around!

Celebration: It's difficult to imagine a jollier birthday party than that WGBH-TV threw for Julia Child's 80th birthday last August. Julia says she didn't really want a party but when she learned it could be used for fund-raising, this long-time champion of PBS (whose association with public TV goes back to long before it was called PBS) agreed.

"A Birthday Tribute to Julia Child - Compliments to the Chef" airs at 4 p.m. Saturday on KCTS-TV and it's a gem, a tasty mix of food and fun, tributes from other octogenarians (including Alistair Cooke) and other food experts, recipes from other chefs fixing birthday treats for Julia and clips from Julia's wonderful shows. Best of all are those moments, pretaped, when Julia reminisces about her life, her love of food and cooking in her own inimitable fashion. Many more birthdays for this one-of-a-kind woman.

Video notes: Peter Jennings will attempt to make sense of what has been happening in what used to be Yugoslavia in an ABC special, "The Land of the Demons," at 8 tonight on KOMO-TV. . . KCTS-TV repeats that engaging portrait of a year in the life of Queen Elizabeth, "Elizabeth R," at 8:30 tonight . . . NBC's "Seinfeld" explores the dangers of parking in a handicapped space in the new episode airing at 9:30 tonight on KING-TV. . . NBC airs the final segment of Faith Daniels' daytime series at 11 a.m. tomorrow on KING-TV, to be replaced at that time Monday with "Family Secrets," a new game show hosted by Bob Eubanks . . . Former hostage Terry Anderson speaks at a National Press Club event at 8 a.m. Saturday on C-SPAN . . . Ross Perot has a high TV profile this weekend, appearing at 3 p.m. Saturday on C-SPAN and then hosting the first of his "National Referendums" at 8 p.m. Sunday on KING-TV. . . AMC repeats the entertaining interview with Katharine Hepburn in the newest segment of its "Reflections on the Silver Screen" series at 1 p.m. Saturday. . . KTZZ-TV repeats the "American Sports Awards" which aired earlier this month on ESPN, at 8 p.m. Saturday. . . . Oscar nominee Miranda Richardson hosts NBC's "Saturday Night Live" at midnight Saturday on KING-TV.