(FORTUNE Magazine) – / You thought Barbarians at the Gate was a roller-coaster read? Hold tight for the TV-movie version of the stranger-than-fiction best-seller about the battle for control of RJR Nabisco. Written by Larry Gelbart, the creator of TV's M*A*S*H, the potboiler cost $7 million and will reach screens on HBO (owned by FORTUNE's parent, Time Warner) March 20. Actor James Garner plays wheeler-dealer CEO F. Ross Johnson with a garrulousness that seems to ooze from a deep well of greed. ''Every penny you think I'm pissing away here comes back to us dressed like a nickel,'' says the movie Johnson. Ross the Boss rollicks in the fast lane; like his real-life counterpart, he even uses a corporate jet to transport his pooch. Henry Kravis, Johnson's foe, remains hushed, composed, and emotionally efficient as the bidding war rages. He never wavers in his belief that an LBO will eliminate RJR's executive excesses and free billions in profits for investors: ''Debt can be an asset,'' he whispers. ''Debt tightens a company.'' Kravis is played by Jonathan Pryce, the British actor who won a Tony for his performance in the Broadway hit Miss Saigon. The real Kravis, who hails from Oklahoma and says he stands five-foot-eight, has not seen the film but exclaims, ''It sounds terrific. I told ((producer)) Ray Stark that he is portraying me exactly right -- as a guy six-foot-three with an English accent.'' On celluloid, Kravis gets the stature that his real- world billions can't buy: He is taller than his leggy, fashion designer wife, Carolyne Roehm (played by Rita Wilson). A warning to James D. Robinson III, the soon-to-be-dethroned CEO at American Express and Johnson's ally in the LBO battle: Steel yourself for a skewering. In one of many embellishments of the truth, a shot in the charge-card king's home shows the maid ironing $20 bills. Cut to the master bedroom, where Robinson (Fred Dalton Thompson) is duding up for a bigwigs' square dance -- as Superman. Beside him throughout the film is superflak wife Linda (Joanna Cassidy), who handled public relations for Johnson's buyout group and is portrayed as a sugary strawberry blonde. By and large, other characters in the RJR saga dread seeing their reel personas. John Greeniaus, head of Nabisco, complains, ''The average worker, the guy in a Detroit auto plant, is going to say, 'Oh God, look at those business people with their egotistical, money-hungry, screw-the-little-guy attitudes.' '' One exception is private investor Dan Lufkin, an unsuccessful third-party bidder for RJR. ''Everyone should care about this story,'' he says. ''Today's turnover in corporate America, the boardroom battle at General Motors, the investor attacks on Sears -- all emanate from LBO-type thinking by people like Henry Kravis, who logically target mismanaged companies.'' Lufkin may have another reason for wanting America to watch: He makes a cameo appearance as himself.