TV MOVIE REVIEW : New CBS Movie ‘Higher Ground’ Leaves John Denver High and Dry

“Higher Ground” seems an apt title for the new TV movie airing Sunday night on CBS, because after watching it, viewers may feel the urge to seek some.

The film (9 p.m. on Channels 2 and 8) stars John Denver as an FBI agent who quits to become a bush pilot in Alaska, and ends up investigating a bootlegging operation and his best friend’s murder.

Denver has lost his Buster Brown haircut and granny glasses over the years, but making this forever boyish nice guy an action cop is like “Mr. Rogers” swearing--it’s not to be believed.

Denver is also co-executive producer here, but there’s still plenty of blame to go around.

Michael Eric Stein’s stultifying script, Robert Day’s loose direction and the miscasting, not only of Denver, but of Richard Masur as the most obvious villain since Snidely Whiplash, are not to be discounted.

Add a score by Lee Holdridge that doesn’t know whether it’s part of a Cecil B. DeMille epic or a John Denver special. Denver sings the title song (which he co-wrote with Holdridge) as we see lots and lots of footage of him in his plane flying through clouds, over snow-capped peaks and ocean. The lyrics go, “Maybe it’s just the dream in me; maybe it’s just my style . . .”

Whatever happened to “Rocky Mountain High?”

The dialogue is bad enough to suspect parody. “When I was a boy, I left Scotland to seek my fortune,” explains John Rhys-Davies, as a tough Alaskan policeman who thinks Denver is a trouble-maker. He somehow doesn’t see Masur, the town’s leading citizen, hulking around with creepy henchmen.

Denver, using a sort of “Crocodile” Dundee taming technique, talks killers into putting down their guns by saying, “Easy does it . . . c’mon, pal.” He calls everyone “pal.”

When it ends, Denver is a hero and “series pilot syndrome” seems to fill the air. C’mon, pal.