A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

to play on the screen , even those as talented as Ward and Amis . Brann and Malo

ney 's ensuing battle of wits yields an amazing thicket of thoughts , emotions a

nd evolving perceptions , and they have been elucidated with an unsettling thoro

ughness by the veteran independent filmmaker known as Beth B . Indeed , Beth B. 

, who collaborated on the screenplay with Bell as well as directed the film , is

 ideal for this assignment . Such earlier films as `` Vortex '' ( 1983 ) and `` 

Black Box '' ( 1978 ) , made with her husband , Scott B. , have been concerned w

ith the abuse of power , both political and sexual . Worn and pale when we first

 meet her , Eileen , a strip joint hostess , reminds us of Meryl Streep 's mothe

r of a missing child in Fred Schepisi 's `` A Cry in the Dark '' in that she see

ms simply weary rather than heartbroken or distraught , which is how mothers are

 supposed to act in such circumstances . ( It is possible , after all , for a mo

ther to be a grudging , reluctant parent without being a child killer . ) Right 

off her aura of cool resignation throws Brann , a sexy ultra-macho type with a t

raditional view of women 's roles as a wife and mother . His relationship with E

ileen teeters like a seesaw , as the impact of his menace wavers as Eileen appea

rs to gather strength , acquiring an increasingly blunt , hard edge , seeming to

 agree with much of what he has to say about her . Through this endless parrying

 much emerges . First , we find ourselves not quite so quick to believe that Eil

een may in fact be guilty of infanticide , and then we start wondering about Lt.

 Brann. How do we know he really is a cop ? Could he be the killer of the childr

en himself if they are in fact dead ? Suspense , in turn , triggers paradox : Co

uld a man as sexually dominant as Brann , a man who sees himself as a good guy ,

 be finding himself tantalized by the prospect of yielding to what he sees as th

e embodiment of evil ? And then there is the role of illusion , seemingly so muc

h more crucial to men than to women , who constantly find themselves in situatio

ns where they feel that they must pretend to be other than what they are to men 

, many of whom even today still see women as either madonnas or whores . Illusio

n , in fact , battles with truth throughout `` Two Small Bodies , '' which is so

 compelling that it never once seems a filmed play .

 Beastie Boys `` Ill Communication '' ( Capitol ) 3 stars . Other rappers used t

o fault the Beasties for their abrasive , somewhat monochromatic rapping style ,

 and on `` Ill Communication , '' the boys have largely returned to the one-note

 bray they made famous on their 1986 album , `` Licensed to Ill. . '' With this 

album , as on 1989 's `` Paul 's Boutique , '' they are masters of the fun part 

of hip-hop that many artists have forgotten the art of swiping bits of music fro

m hundreds of obscure old records and stitching them together into something res

embling art . They even manage to manufacture a beat around a second or two of l

ow groans from singing Tibetan monks . Once again , the Beasties prove they are 

maybe the 417th best hard-core punk band in the world , and again , they fill ou

t the album with dusted , low-tech instrumentals . But the Beasties are a lot mo

re ambitious than they 'd like you to think they are . The complete , self-refer

ential trash-culture world they create on `` Ill Communication '' may be on a le

vel with the visions of prime Public Enemy and Nine Inch Nails . JONATHAN GOLD N

ick Cave & the Bad Seeds `` Let Love In '' ( Mute/Elektra ) 3 stars . Will this 

explorer of the soul 's darkest recesses be the upcoming `` Lollapalooza '' tour

 's sacrificial cult band , like the Jesus and Mary Chain two years ago a noctur

nal creature brought blinking to the stage in bright sunlight while the alternat

ive-rock hit acts wait for the flattering cover of night ? Even though it coinci

des with this opportunity to be heard by a huge audience one that has embraced h

is filtered-down influence without even knowing it Cave 's new album isn't exact

ly a gesture toward the mainstream . But `` Let Love In '' is less phantasmagori

c than its immediate predecessors , abandoning the last album 's queasy cabaret 

and surreal sea chanteys for classic rock strains a `` Blonde on Blonde '' richn

ess , haunting Doors grooves , Stones raucousness . Musical broadening notwithst

anding , `` Let Love In '' is unmistakably Cave . Devils still crawl around the 

bedroom , cities are dark and murderous places , and love remains a source of lo

ss and torment and little else . Cave has never set forth these themes with more

 musical elegance , and he illuminates them with something new the glimmerings o

f a vulnerable spirit . RICHARD CROMELIN All-4-One , `` All-4-One , '' ( Blitzz/

Atlantic ) 3 stars . Tired of all the wanna-be vocal groups desecrating doo-wop 

? Then check out All-4-One 's debut album . In modern-day doo-wop , this is as g

ood as it gets . The young group 's reverence for vintage doo-wop is evident on 

such romantic songs as the glorious remake of `` So Much in Love , '' a highligh

t of this excellent album mostly ballads boasting spine-tingling harmonies . DEN

NIS HUNT

 MANILA The Philippine military Thursday captured the country 's most-wanted com

munist rebel , the mastermind of an urban hit squad that has been blamed for the

 killings of a U.S. . Army colonel and more than 200 policemen and local officia

ls . The arrest of Felimon Lagman , 43 , appeared to deal a serious blow to a 26

-year-old communist insurgency that has been wracked by bitter infighting , ideo

logical rifts and the repudiation of its guiding principles in much of the world

 . Lagman was arrested Thursday morning by naval intelligence agents as he drove

 a car in the Quezon City district of this sprawling capital of more than 8 mill

ion people . A 24-year veteran of the rebellion and the younger brother of a con

gressman , he headed the 5,000-member underground Communist Party apparatus in M

anila , which fields a feared assassination squad called the Alex Boncayao Briga

de . `` It 's a very big loss for the ( brigade ) , as well as .. . the entire C

ommunist Party of the Philippines , '' said President Fidel Ramos . But he said 

the dwindling guerrilla movement would continue to pose a threat of urban killin

gs , and a senior government official said authorities were bracing for a possib

le `` terrorism campaign '' in retaliation . The Alex Boncayao Brigade , named f

or a leftist labor leader who joined the guerrillas and was slain by security fo

rces in 1983 , went on a rampage of urban killings here in the late 1980s . Amon

g its victims was Col. James Rowe , an American military adviser who was gunned 

down in a street ambush in April 1989 as he was being driven to work in his supp

osedly bulletproof car . The killings of local police and others proved unpopula

r , and the brigade was reined in when it earned a reputation as a communist dea

th squad . Lately , however , it has shown a resurgence of activity . The group 

, which is believed to include about 30 trained assassins and about 100 other me

mbers in the capital , claimed responsibility for the May 7 assassination of Tim

oteo Zarcal , a former police colonel who was recently acquitted of kidnapping c

harges . Last month , it admitted gunning down the father of a suspect on trial 

in a rape-murder case , charging that the father had participated in the crime .

 The brigade has also put out lists of allegedly corrupt legislators and governm

ent officials , but Lagman denied that they were being `` targeted for liquidati

on . '' The arrest of Lagman came two days after 11 sympathizers of the brigade 

were detained for participating in an unauthorized street demonstration to mark 

the 10th anniversary of its founding . The brigade used the occasion to announce

 a new policy , saying it would no longer impose `` revolutionary taxes '' in th

e capital region and that summary execution would no longer be its only method o

f implementing `` revolutionary justice . '' On May 4 , the Ramos government sco

red a coup by arresting Wilma Tiamzon , 42 , the secretary general of the Commun

ist Party and a key supporter of party founder and chairman Jose Maria Sison , w

ho lives in self-exile in the Netherlands . After it was founded in December 196

8 , the Communist Party formed an armed wing , the New People 's Army , to wage 

a Maoist-inspired `` protracted people 's war '' aimed at overthrowing the gover

nment . Tens of thousands of Filipinos were killed over the next 20 years as the

 fighting spread and the guerrilla army grew to an estimated 26,000 fighters . S

ince then , however , the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe , internal par

ty splits and the restoration of democracy in the Philippines have eroded the mo

vement , which now fields about 8,000 guerrillas . A major rift developed in 199

2 , pitting Sison and a coterie of loyalists including Tiamzon against renegades

 led by Lagman and several other senior party officials and guerrilla commanders

 . A formerly cohesive , committed revolutionary movement has turned into a coll

ection of malcontents whose feuding sometimes takes on a soap-opera quality . La

gman has denounced Sison as a `` degenerate communist and unremolded misfit , ''

 while the Sison camp has accused Lagman and his comrades of offenses ranging fr

om `` gangsterism '' to `` sexual and financial opportunism . '' In January , a 

former guerrilla commander linked to opponents of Sison was executed gangland-st

yle by unidentified gunmen outside his house near Manila . Last month , Sison 's

 faction said it had gunned down another former rebel , Leopoldo Mabilangan , 34

 , for alleged criminal activities . Since then , Lagman and Sison have traded t

hreats and recriminations , with each claiming that the other is trying to assas

sinate him . `` Come and get me , '' Lagman said earlier this month in response 

to an arrest order against him from the Sison camp . He warned that if Sison 's 

followers tried to capture or execute him , `` automatically we will hit Sison i

n Utrecht , '' the Dutch city where the party founder maintains his headquarters

 . `` Sison 's death , '' Lagman said , `` would be just a phone call away . '' 

`` I now laugh it off , '' Sison said of the threat , adding that he had already

 taken `` precautionary measures . ''

 WASHINGTON Federal and military retirees racing to beat a phantom deadline for 

qualifying for their share of a potential $ 700 million tax refund from the Stat

e of Virginia can relax . The refund issue remains unsettled , but Virginia tax 

officials have begged us to tell you there is no deadline for filing amended tax

 returns . Published reports advised retirees of a mid-June deadline for amended

 returns . As a result , they have been burning up the telephone lines to tax ac

countants , members of Congress and the state legislature demanding information 

, or clarification of , the alleged deadline . But tax officials in Richmond ask

ed us to advise retirees many in the Washington area that the one year that reti

rees will have to file amended returns willn't start until there is a final sett

lement in the refund battle , which is now five years old . The battle on behalf

 of ex-federal and military personnel began when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled ( 

Davis v. Michigan ) that more than a dozen states had discriminated against U.S.

 retirees by taxing their pensions while not taxing the pensions of state and lo

cal government retirees between 1985 and 1988 . Virginia was one of those states

 . Most of the states found to be using the discriminatory practice gave retiree

s refunds but Virginia because it was such a big financial item in the state tha

t is home to more than 200,000 federal retirees raised new legal objections each

 time the Supreme Court told it to pay up .

 PRETORIA , South Africa South Africa plans a sharp increase in its arms exports

 in the wake of a United Nations Security Council vote this week to drop its lon

g-standing embargo on the country 's arms trade . The head of Armscor , the stat

e-run arms industry , predicted South African arms exports would more than doubl

e this year to about $ 500 million in sales . He said South Africa 's arms indus

try , which flourished during the era of apartheid and international sanctions b

ut has been contracting since the late 1980s , would be `` increasingly driven '

' by exports . The prospect of South Africa turning into a major arms supplier i

n a continent riven by war and carnage has caused some alarm here , but the post

-apartheid government appears tantalized by the jobs and foreign-exchange revenu

es that the exports would generate . `` I don't think it would be fair to say th

at a particular country should not engage in trade in arms , '' President Nelson

 Mandela said in a nationally televised interview on the eve of the U.N. action 

. `` Arms are for the purpose of defending the sovereignty and integrity of a co

untry . From that angle , there is nothing wrong with having trade in arms . '' 

This week , as the Security Council voted to drop its 17-year-old embargo on arm

s sales to South Africa and a decade-old ban on arms purchases from it , the hea

d of another U.N. agency scolded industrial nations for contributing to the mise

ry and bloodshed in Africa by peddling arms on this continent . James Gustave Sp

eth , administrator of the U.N. . Development Program , noted that the world 's 

annual revenues from arms sales $ 125 billion was more than double the annual le

vel of development assistance $ 60 billion to poor countries in Africa and elsew

here . He called for arms sales to Africa to be phased out over the next three y

ears . Tielman de Waal , executive general manager of Armscor , said South Afric

a 's highly secretive arms industry already conforms to international standards 

that forbid the sale of arms to governments that suppress their own citizens or 

otherwise abuse human rights . He said Armscor had supplied the government of Rw

anda with about $ 30 million worth of small-caliber rifles , grenades and mortar

s over the past five years but suspended its shipments last September as the sti

rrings of civil war became more apparent . He said Armscor had suspended arms sa

les to Zaire , a country widely believed to be supplying arms across its border 

to the Angolan rebel movement , known by its Portuguese acronym , UNITA . The tr

ouble with such prohibitions , analysts say , is that once arms find their way i

nto the marketplace , they have a tendency to fall into unsavory hands a syndrom

e South Africa knows as well as any country . Its exceptionally high levels of c

riminal and political violence have been fueled by a brisk illegal trade in AK-4

7s and other light arms from neighboring Mozambique , where a 15-year civil war 

ended in 1992 . When the United Nations slapped its first arms embargo on South 

Africa in 1977 , the white-minority government reacted by investing heavily in a

n already-sophisticated domestic arms industry . At the time , South Africa was 

supporting rebels in nearby Angola and Mozambique and confronting other neighbor

s in the so-called front-line states , which opposed its policy of apartheid . A

t its peak in the late 1980s , the domestic arms industry here employed some 150

,000 people and was said to be South Africa 's largest exporter of finished manu

facturing products . Though all of its dealings were shrouded in secrecy , it wa

s presumed to be supplying such states as Somalia , Libya , Sudan , Ethiopia and

 Sri Lanka . Iraq used a South African-made long-range cannon during the 1991 Pe

rsian Gulf War . De Waal said a 65 percent cut in capital spending on defense ha

s cut the arms industry work force to 75,000 people . And , because South Africa

 is no longer in conflict with its neighbors , the number of those jobs that rel

y on exports will grow . Currently , about 15,000 jobs exist because of export s

ales and that will increase in the coming year to about 35,000 . South Africa 's

 artillery , armored vehicles , mine-sweeping vehicles and the Rooivalk helicopt

er gunship are said to be competitive in the export market . In addition to mark

ets in Africa , the arms industry here hopes to find customers in the Far East ,

 Middle East and Europe . Just how aggressively it will pursue these sales is a 

matter of debate within the new government . Though Mandela appeared to give a g

reen light to arms exports this week , he has spoken and written in the past in 

support of universal disarmament . `` The new government seems to have a fairly 

classic division between hawks and doves on the arms-export question , '' said L

aurie Nathan , head of the Center for Conflict Resolution at the University of t

he Western Cape . `` The defense ministers want to keep the industry alive , whi

le some of the ministers in foreign affairs and in domestic areas have different

 priorities . '' But Jakkie Cilliers , head of an independent military watchdog 

group , said he believes the hawks already have won . `` There 's been a dramati

c shift in the African National Congress position in the past year , '' he said 

. `` Now that they 're the government , their attitude toward arms exports seems

 to be , ` Let 's go for it . ' Given economies of scale , it 's the only way th

ey can save the defense industry and the jobs that go with it . ''

 LONDON Prime Ministers John Major of Britain and Albert Reynolds of Ireland on 

Thursday intensified their pressure on the Irish Republican Army to give up its 

campaign of violence in Northern Ireland . Speaking on the steps of No. 10 Downi

ng Street after a meeting Thursday night , they warned Sinn Fein , the IRA 's po

litical arm , that they will not `` wait around '' for the party to respond to t

heir peace overtures . The two leaders , who last December signed the Downing St

reet Declaration offering Sinn Fein a place at Northern Ireland peace talks if t

he IRA would stop its attacks , said they would continue negotiations with polit

icians in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic . `` A great deal of progress 

has been made , '' Major said . `` There 's more to be done , but it is not awai

ting an answer from Sinn Fein . '' Reynolds added , `` The two governments are n

ot going to wait around for any more prevarication on either side to stop the vi

olence . '' Earlier , Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams raised peace hopes by decl

aring to the British Broadcasting Corp. that his group would make an official re

sponse to the Downing Street peace proposal but not until after European Parliam

ent elections June 9 . `` I am quite convinced that what is going to come out of

 this peace process is a peace settlement , '' Adams said . But Major dashed col

d water on the statement . `` I see nothing new in what he had to say this morni

ng , '' the prime minister said . `` What was quite striking was what he didn't 

say . He made no indication that he was going to give up violence . '' ( Optiona

l add end ) Protestant leaders from Northern Ireland also scorned Adams ' statem

ent . Member of Parliament David Trimble declared that it was all `` some big co

n job '' designed to force the British into more concessions . While Major and R

eynolds insisted that the peace process was making progress , others seemed less

 hopeful . One Republican source told the Irish Times of Dublin : `` You don't h

ave to study the British response for days , or discuss it for weeks , to know t

hat it 's unacceptable . '' The killings and bombings have continued since the p

eace declaration was issued , with the level of sectarian violence between Catho

lics and Protestants higher in the past five months than for the same period las

t year .

 WASHINGTON President Clinton 's sharp attacks on congressional Republicans at a

 meeting with Democratic leaders drew a quick rebuttal Thursday from GOP officia

ls , who said Clinton and the Democrats were running out of excuses for their st

ring of electoral defeats . The partisan exchanges marked an escalation in the e

lection-year rhetoric of both parties and signaled the outlines of the strategie

s each will be using this fall to appeal to voters . In a private meeting with D

emocratic leaders that came the day after Democrats lost a traditionally Democra

tic House seat in Kentucky , the president lashed out at Republicans as obstruct

ionists , `` fanatics '' held hostage to the religious right and a party carryin

g a message of `` hate and fear . '' House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich , R-Ga. ,

 said in an interview Thursday that he was infuriated by Clinton 's attacks . ``

 We had helped him all day on the foreign operations bill until they ( the Democ

rats ) took a recess to go over there and hear the president attack us. .. . I t

hink it 's a bit ripe . '' Gingrich said he could not understand the president c

oming up to Capitol Hill to bash Republicans just as the Democrats lost another 

special election and as House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski

 , D-Ill. , faces possible indictment . Sen. Dan Coats , R-Ind. , accused Clinto

n of `` duplicitous '' behavior and warned that he was courting disaster on heal

th care by appealing for Republican support in a bipartisan meeting and then cri

ticizing GOP lawmakers at a Democratic caucus . `` It 's duplicitous to come her

e and meet with Republican leaders and stress the need for bipartisanship and th

en walk down the hall and indicate this is a partisan issue , '' Coats told a ne

ws conference . Coats acknowledged that other presidents have conducted partisan

 pep rallies while trying to negotiate with the opposition but contended that th

e tactic is counterproductive . Some Democrats said privately that while Clinton

 's exhortation to Democrats to defend the administration 's record was helpful 

, they feared that the president had overstepped in some of his rhetoric about t