DVD Wrong Is Right
Actually, wrong is just wrong in this leaden spoof of media irresponsibility. Written and directed by Richard Brooks, this film is a sorry attempt to one-up the near-perfect Network. In this 1982 satire, Sean Connery plays a network correspondent who finds himself using and being used by terrorists, government officials, arms dealers, and the like while trying to scoop the competition. In some ways, this film looks positively prescient in its depiction of media ruthlessness, anticipating by more than a decade the rise of the kind of tabloid TV that has spread like a virus. But the writing is so flat that Connery barely escapes with his dignity, something that can't be said for a supporting cast of second-raters that includes Robert Conrad and John Saxon. --Marshall Fine |
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Review(s): DVD Wrong Is Right | |
| Freakishly accurate predicton of 9/11 20-plus years ago! |
Watching this movie is really frightening (in a good way) when you consider the world we live in today, and that this movie was made back in 1982.Here's the plot: A buffoonish US President from Texas (with a token black woman on his White House staff) finds out (during an election year) that an Arab terrorist group is planting two bombs in the World Trade Center in NYC. His critics say there is no evidence of these WMDs. In the end, he "finds" the bombs and uses it as justification to invade the Arab country he suspects of planting them. The Arab country, it turns out, had nothing to do with the planned WTC attack. Actually, the CIA planted the bombs as part of the president's re-election strategy. (This fact remains a secret from the public). Even though the president has the lowest approval ratings ever, he gets a boost from the unjustified war in the Middle East and wins re-election (and his cronies in Texas get control of the Arab oil fields). Sound familiar? It was supposed to be "black comedy" back in '82. We were supposed to watch this and think, "Well, thank God that would never happen!" But it has! And, that's pretty darn scary! Unfortunately, the film doesn't really work as pure entertainment. For one thing, the editing seems to have been dome with a weedwhacker. And a lot of it doesn't make much sense. Still, Connery does well with what the script gives him.
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| Disturbingly Prophetic of 9/11 and the War on Iraq |
Back in 1983, I knew this movie had to be good, because my mother lobbied so hard to keep my father from taking me to it. She was afraid that it would be cynical, subversive, and morally reprehensible. He took me, anyway, and she was blessedly right. Naturally, I loved it. WRONG IS RIGHT was truly a film out-of-time. It feels either astonishingly dated (it makes a good double feature with DR. STRANGELOVE, or THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST) or disturbingly prophetic (WAG THE DOG's team and Michael Moore could have used it as a text book). But, in the Eighties, you just didn't seem 'em like this. I'm not sure if it's a really great film -- many of the jokes misfire, and many of the plot elements appear more winningly in other works. Still, its singularly smarmy energy and unrepentantly bleak view of society, politics, and the media are outstanding virtues, sure to warm the heart of any curmudgeon. In the wake of 9/11 and the war on Iraq, much of the film is utterly chilling. It has become really hard to watch, and I mean that as a high compliment. You'll also be treated to a Who's Who of stock, B-level superstars: Robert Conrad; GD Spradlin; John Saxon; Katharine Ross; Leslie Nielson; Henry Silva; Rosalind Cash: Robert Webber; George Grizzard; Dean Stockwell; and even a cameo by Jennifer Jason Leigh!
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| today's headlines written twenty years ago |
I remember my friends and I seeing this in the theater when it was originally released. We were Connery fans sorely disappointed with a satire depicting such insanely implausible ideas as "suicide bombers" killing themselves and innocent bystanders to make the news and advance their cause. All this against a backdrop of a story about a terrorist Middle East nation getting its hands on some nukes. The movie ended, we didn't know the good guy from bad, and when you go to a Sean Connery movie having only known him as the original Bond, James Bond, not being able to tell the good guy from bad is a little more than disconcerting.There is where my opinion of this movie sat in the back of my mind these twenty years. Now, anyone who had seen this movie then and watching the news today can't help but wonder if someone somewhere hadn't picked up some very ominous notions from watching this movie--it's a little more than eerie. For a satire there are fewer laughs now than when the ideas here were far removed from the reality of 1982. I'd like, for a while anyway, if life imitated art a little less closely than this.
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