WEEKEND TV : YABLONSKI TALE OVERLOOKS UNIONISM

“Act of Vengeance” is another example of Home Box Office’s intention to punctuate its schedule with ambitious original drama. Yet the two-hour production--which abruptly concludes with the 1969 slaying of labor leader Jock Yablonski and his wife and daughter--turns out to be a narrowly focused murder story that all but ignores the broader, critical, fascinating issue of unionism (see related story below).

The drama premiers on the pay-cable network at 8 p.m. Sunday and will be repeated twice in April and numerous times in May.

The Yablonskis were murdered in their beds after Jock had contested his losing election to incumbent Tony Boyle for the presidency of the United Mine Workers. Yablonski was certain that the election was stolen by the corrupt Boyle, who is shown here ordering his foe’s execution.

Director John Mackenzie shapes the step-by-step murder plot into a suspenseful, sexually explicit drama that at times is almost comic as we follow the burlesque efforts of Yablonski’s bumbling assassins to their grim conclusion.

What’s missing from “Act of Vengeance” is a sense of the United Mine Workers as a union, with a past as well as a grimy present in the Boyle era, and a sense of what the election is all about.

Charles Bronson turns in a nice performance as Yablonski, a former Boyle associate. Robert Schenkkan is perfect as the weaselly loser who plans the murder and Ellen Barkin is convincing as his manipulative wife. Ellen Burstyn plays Yablonski’s wife, Margaret.

It is Wilford Brimley, though, who steals the show as the tough, ruthless Boyle, who favored mine companies over mine workers. His election was ultimately overturned and he later died in jail.