What do you do when people get in the way of your happiness
and your ambition? You kill them, of
course. Graham Marshall (Michael Caine) discovers this easy
solution by accident when an angry, physically intimidating homeless man in a
subway demands respect. Perhaps this hits too close. Respect was what he wasn’t getting at home or
at work. The vagrant, an obvious failure
in Marshall’s eyes, won’t go away. A
train and a little shove, not intended to kill — though it did — and poof,
problem solved. Now, on to other problems,
larger, more irritating problems at home and at work.
In Shock to the System,
based on the novel by Simon Brett,
Caine plays an understated Don Draper, a man trying to advance in an
advertising firm full of duplicitous, ass kissing executives. The first death seems to light the way to the
a dormant gene in Mr. Marshall’s constitution. He didn’t know he, who seemed to
have a relatively mild, plodding personality, actually possessed the mind of a cold-blooded
manipulator. He not only discovered this hidden talent, but now delighted in
exercising it. The cast — Elizabeth McGovern, Swoosie Kurtz and Will Patton — is solid, and the small, smart story is told well. Is it possible to eliminate so many obstacles
and not get caught? We shall see.
Michael Caine makes so many films, he has to make some of
them twice. Sleuth
is based on Anthony Shaffer’s award
winning play. In the 1972 film, Caine played the younger of two characters in
what turns out to be a deadly pissing match.
Lawrence Olivier played the
older man, attempting to recover from the humiliation he felt at the theft his
wife’s heart. In 2007, the film was
remade and updated, this time with Caine as the aging crime writer and Jude Law as the young actor or hairdresser
(we’re not quite sure), who proves to be surprisingly adept at countering the
sophisticated writer’s capricious, seemingly deadly moves.
What we have here is a stylish, mannered and fascinating
two-person play in a stunning high-tech home, the third star of the film. Harold
Pinter wrote the screenplay and Kenneth
Branagh directed. Watching a
cerebral and cunning Caine and a clever and outrageous Law going at each other
is as good as it gets, a genuine championship bout.
A Shock to the System
is a fine undercard to Sleuth, which
is clearly the main event.
Scotch would work as an accompaniment to the evening. Martinis are probably too American for either
film. This is a British battle. By the
way, both films, especially the claustrophobic Sleuth, work well on home screens.
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