Agency

A mysterious millionaire buys an ad agency and begins to replace its employees with his own people, who don't appear to be advertising types at all. A copywriter begins to suspect that the man isn't interested in selling products, as much as he is in inserting his own sinister political beliefs into the commercials the agency runs on television in order to subliminally brainwash an unsuspecting public into supporting the causes and candidates he wants. When the copywriter confides his suspicions to a friend and soon afterwards is mysteriously killed, his friend begins his own investigation.

Could have been a really good movie in more capable hands. As it is, it is rather slow and interest wanes mid way.

Robert Mitchum is barely in it. It's really a lee Majors movie. Valerie Perinne had already lost her looks and is not a particilarly good actress.

A person with dubious background purchases an ad agency. There he meticulously replaces the long-standing staff with his own. He buys targeted ad space.

We have already figured out what has happened and what is going to happen so the only thing left is to watch the movie for the particular acting and maybe some twists and details. (Fat chance)

This has all the qualities of the 1960s ... oops, 1980s television program. This movie has everything from cheap sets to stilted statements. The only redeeming feature is looking at the old tiny cars and something called a VCR.

They did think to include Valerie Perrine who is a lot more interesting in Steambath ) TV adaptation of Bruce Jay Friedman's off-Broadway play.

I have seen Agency the first time on TV many years ago. Even the French version (done in Paris...) was not bad, but couldn't save it...

Again Montreal passes for an American city (too oblivious that Place Ville Marie is shown too much here) in winter. And Lee Majors tried here, even with a beard, to get rid of the typecast of the Six Million Dollar Man he portrayed, along with Valerie Perrine who wanted to pump some gas in her failing career and Robert Mitchum, a veteran now condemmed to roles in bad films...

The story's good, moving. But bad photography, poor editing (some scenes are too dark) and some weak performances spoil everything. At least Saul Rubinek steals the show here as the employee who tries to denounce the scheme but gets killed by Quinn's secret henchmen...

Sad to say the least: even the interesting stories get some bad treatment. And you don't need subliminal messages to tell it...

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.

AGENCY is another of those Canadian-made pictures posing as an American film, replete with big-name U.S. actors, and featuring Montreal unconvincingly standing in for Washington, D.C.

With a premise that is more intriguing and timely now than ever - subliminal messages in TV ads - one would have wished for a sincere, thoughtful approach. Instead, the wretched script is awash with bad dialogue and, in the second half, silly corporate intrigue scenes involving Lee Majors slinking about the ad agency at night, trying to get to the bottom of boss Robert Mitchum's nefarious political machinations. Mitchum's henchmen are so laughable-looking and inept that they appear to have been recruited straight from a Pink Panther film. Parts of the film border on outright comedy.

Still, the film is not completely without merit. The first half is promising; Majors makes an affable protagonist; Saul Rubinek is quite good as the harried eccentric who first discovers Mitchum's conspiracy (although his open contempt of his boss makes his continued employment at the agency another implausible factor). Valerie Perrine, however, appears in an entirely disposable role as the obligatory concerned wife.

Finally, all production elements are professional, and AGENCY at least turns out to be a diverting, if daft and disappointing, thriller. I was not bored.