Agency - Botschaft des Bösen

When people talk about ''crappy Canadian movies" they're referring to movies like Agency. Somebody puts his whole life into writing a script and seeing it through the development process. But the subject matter is something dull - curling, the ad business, Anne of Green Gables. So instead of getting big-time Hollywood funding the movie's producers have to bamboozle Canadian dentists into chipping in as a tax dodge. You end up with a cheaply made movie that wouldn't see the inside of a movie theatre without a terrorist threat, and probably got shown on late-night CBC at least once a year for decades. Lee Majors looked good in that beard, though.

Lee Majors and Saul Rubinek work for the same advertising agency, headed by Robert Mitchum, but all is not as it appears at the office. Saul has a conspiracy theory of subliminal messaging and political tampering through the ads. Lee starts to believe him, and during one scene he shows his sweetie pie Valerie Perrine how they doctor up the print advertisement of an alcohol label to include skull images in the ice cubes. That's the best scene in the movie, because everything else is either boring or typical.

Lots of 1970s movies are pretty bad, and films made in 1980 sometimes bleed into the terrible previous decade. The Agency has that '70s aura to it, like it's a watered down Network, made by a lousy television channel. I'm not trying to be mean, but after seeing thousands and thousands of movies, there's no sense recommending others watch the bad ones.

DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie might not be your friend. the opening scene features an advertisement that takes place in a nightclub with strobe lights and odd camera angles, and it might make you sick. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

In this era of MAD MEN, people are taking a longer look at Madison Avenue advertising agencies and what they did in years gone by. Well, this rare 1980 film starring Robert Mitchum, issued as MIND GAMES, which exists only on video and has not been issued on DVD, should be of interest to anyone making a real study of this subject. Mitchum is as good as ever as the mysterious new boss ('with no background in the advertising business' as people mutter darkly to themselves) of an ad agency which he has just bought at a ridiculously high price. It turns out that Mitchum is up to no good. He eventually admits that he is amply funded by an anonymous group of the financial elite to insert subliminal messages into the ads of commercial sponsors, in order to influence elections. He has just turned round a US Senate race in Arizona by this means, and brought about the defeat of a liberal Senator named Grunsky. I noticed in the credits at the end that Alicia Grunsky was an assistant art director of the film, so this must have been an 'in joke' of the production team. The 'hero' of the story is the creative director of the ad agency, a Jon Hamm figure, who discovers the truth and struggles to stop Mitchum's diabolical plans to manipulate the public and eventually manufacture a president of the sinister elite's choice. Unfortunately, Majors wears one of the most offensively manicured beards imaginable, and is the very image of strutting male vanity, so it is impossible to warm to him. His girl friend is a pathetic, whimpering creature played by Valerie Perrine. Spare us! The only engaging and likable character in the film is an agency employee played by the amusing Saul Rubinek, but he gets killed by Mitchum's goons early in the story, his body stuffed into a refrigerator. The film is based on a novel called AGENCY by Paul Gottlieb, whose other filmed work in 1978 was IN PRAISE OF OLDER WOMEN. The actress Alexandra Stewart appeared in the earlier film and is very effective in AGENCY as well, as Mitchum's sinister and glamorous deputy. Stewart, Canadian by origin, was an alluring ingénue in the sixties in many British films and is still working, having appeared in an astounding 134 titles. She has often specialised in the restrained, aloof, seductive female characters who don't give anything away (except from time to time their virtue). This film is interesting if you are interested. Mitchum glides through it with his usual aplomb, smoothing the wrinkles out of the story by making everything seem convincing, due to his quiet, menacing dominance not only of the agency but of the screen as well.

*****Major Spoilers**** Don't Read If You Did Not See Movie.... Timely movie,especially now when political campaigning never seems to end even after the elections, about the takeover of a large advertising agency, Porter & Stripe, and it's being used to further the agenda of a shadowy and unelected group of power brokers to shape America and the world into what they feel that it should be.

Unknown to the advertising world but with an unlimited amount on money Ted Quinn, Robert Mitchum, buys out the giant Porter & Stripe advertising agency. Quinn soon begins producing and peddling commercials on everything from deodorants drain cleaners and soap products to powered chocolate milk for children. It turns out that the real reason for Quinn's takeover of the agency is not to sell household goods but to sell politicians and even more sinister political ideas to an unsuspecting public.

Quinn slowly starts getting rid of the people working at the agency and begins replacing them with undercover political operatives. One of the people working for the agency as a commercial writer Sam Goldstein, Saul Rubinek, gets wind of what Quinn's plans really are which leads to his death. Sam's friend Philip Morgan, Lee Majors, who at first seemed to be ignorant of what was happening and thinking that Sam was a bid paranoid in his behavior changed his opinion after Sam's death when he comes across a audio tape that Sam recorded just minutes before he died. Marked to be eliminated because he knows too much Morgan is on the run from Quinn's goons throughout the rest of the movie.

Even though dated "Agency" still packs a punch about media manipulation via outside sources and is as good as the many movies made about the same subject since then, 1980. "Agency" is not a top flight Hollywood production with very bad lighting and occasional muffles and drops in the soundtrack but the film still grabs your attention and keeps you interested until the final scene.

Robert Mitchum gives his usual good and workman like performance as Ted Quinn like he did in the many films that he made in the last years of his acting career. Mitchum also gives the movie class and respectability just by being in it.

Lee Majors is surprisingly good with a much more in-depth acting role then what you usually saw him in on TV and in films back then.

Vallerie Perrine is more then adequate as Lee Majors' love interest in the film as well as the damsel in distress. Yet by far the biggest surprise in the movie was Saul Rubinek as Sam Goldstein. Sam who when you first saw him you would think that he's only in the film for comic relief instead became the most pivotal character in the movie.

What I liked most about Rubinek's performance is that the more he got closer to the truth the more his paranoia subsided. As Sam seemed to resigned himself to the fate that was in store for him. Which made Sam both believable and tragic at the same time and which is just the opposite of what you would expect from a part like his in a movie filled with surprises and paranoia like "Agency" to be like.

Silly action yarn about the new boss at an ad agency (Robert Mitchum) who wants to plant subliminal messages in commercials, with political intent. Inoffensive enough, but to call this more than a time-passer would be kind. Music is sometimes too over-the-top for the subject of the shot.