Corporate Affairs (1990) Reviews

• The Messiest Movie of All Time!

  JohnHowardReid2016-12-12

  The Messiest Movie of All Time? Or maybe just the most incompetent movie? The first question is not a criticism. I'm sure its makers would readily agree with this first proposition. The movie is deliberately messy and a lot of money and a lot of ingenuity was involved in making it so - ingenuity in the script, the acting and especially in the realm of production values. In fact, such a huge amount of money was spent on players and props that the screen is literally bursting with production values from go to whoa. There is no relief. No quiet scenes, no throwback to any kind of normality. The pace is so frenetic and production values so overwhelming, there is no time to take a breather for even one of the movie's 82 minutes. Another problem is that all the characters in the huge, huge cast are unsympathetic. We keep expecting that at least one of them will turn out to be a good guy, or even a good girl, but this deliberately doesn't happen. The producer and the director, assisted by a most willing-to-collaborate cast have gone all out to make the movie, including the action, the characters, the dialogue, the plot and the film's enormous production values, a pinnacle of bad taste. So be warned. I enjoyed it. But before the movie was half over, half the audience walked out. I was one of around only twenty people who stayed right to the end. Available on a good Buena Vista DVD. The visuals are fine, but the sound track is a bit muddy (not that it matters).