El hombre de la lente mortal

Some films are truly ahead of their time. The 1982 satire Wrong Is Right is such a film. Though deemed unbelievable when first released nearly three decades ago its satire of TV news being driven more by entertainment then facts, Islamic terrorists seeks nuclear weapons and international intrigue makes it even more relevant today. In short it's a satire for today from yesterday.

The film features a fine cast. Sean Connery stars as Patrick Hale, a globe trotting TV reporter who uncovers the story of a life time. Connery shows off a considerable talent for doing black comedy throughout and comes across well as a cynical reporter who ends up virtually being the voice of reason towards the films end. George Grizzard (as the President), Rosalind Cash (as the Vice-Pesident), Robert Webber (as the CIA director) and Dean Stockwell (as the President's chief of staff) come across well as various government officials caught up in the crisis while in the midst of a presidential election. There's also Robert Conrad as the trigger happy General Wombat in charge of the counter terrorism task force in a performance perhaps a bit too reminiscent of George C. Scott in Doctor Strangelove. Facing off against them are the terrorists lead by Rafeeq (Henry Silva) and Leslie Nielsen as a proto-George W. Bush presidential candidate twenty years before the fact. That's not forgetting either Kathrine Ross as Sally Black or Hardy Kruger as a European arms dealer as both have small but important roles in the films. All together they make for a fine cast for this satire.

It's the satire and script that really makes this film stand out. Inspired by or loosely based on. depending on your choice of phrase, Charles McCarry's 1979 novel The Better Angels which like the film was deemed unbelievable at the time it originally came out. But the film would prove to be eerily prophetic of the world more then two decades later. Terrorists blow up airplanes without warning, a wealthy Middle-Eastern nation seeks to buy nuclear weapons for terrorists and suicide bombers blow themselves up with no warning may have been unbelievable thirty years ago but are practically ripped from the headlines of today. Plus things such as Leslie Nielsen's presidential candidate Mallory who, as not just played by Nielsen but written as well, could easily be mistaken for a satire of George W. Bush if the film hadn't been made in the 1980's but sometime in the last ten years. Yet all the while the film plays not so much as a satire but as a thriller as Hale explores the worlds of his own TV companies bias, government conspiracies, election year politics and Islamic terrorism. But the film works because of its heavy topics rather then despite them because it exposes the sheer absurdities that lies at the heart of it all. While the technology and fashions are those of the early 1980's the film could easily have been released, as the opening of the film states, in the time between now and later.

Armed with a fine cast and an excellent satire/thriller script, Wrong Is Right stands out nearly three decades after its original release. With its plot of TV news being driven more by entertainment then facts, Islamic terrorists seeks nuclear weapons and international intrigue it's hard to believe that a film from thirty years ago could speak so much more about the decades after it was originally released. But this film does and it would appear to have much more effect now then it has ever had. Wrong Is Right is a satire for today from nearly three decades.

Reporter Sean Connery is hot on the trail of a terrorist seeking nuclear weapons. He's tracked by the CIA and other governmental agencies as well as various media outlets. Everyone manipulates everyone and in the end you're left wondering if there is anyone we can trust either in government or in the media.

When first released the film was a seemingly over the top spoof of the media and the governments uneasy relationship. No one could believe that this film was even remotely connected to reality and so they ignored it. I saw this film in a completely empty theater back in 1982. I was all alone and my laughter filled the theater. I thought it was a wicked spoof that took things, like the British Whoops Apocalypse, to a possible but uncomfortable conclusion.

After a run on cable this film dropped off the face of the earth and I didn't see it again until 1991 when I rented it during the first Iraq War. The film suddenly was very relevant and despite the fact that the jokes were funny, I couldn't laugh very much because what happened in the film was mirrored by reality.

Now, 22 years later, film comes out on DVD as the world is even closer to the type of things that happen in the film. Its still funny, and even more uncomfortable.

If you can take a film thats a black comedy that has slightly dated in some ways, but remains right on target with whats going on in the world see this film. Its simply a funny movie thats going to make you see things a little bit differently.

This is not Richard Brooks at his best as a movie-maker, but it is a powerful political film, with a great script (written by Brooks)which was wrongly (wrong is right?) dismissed as a "satire" and "comedy" in the early eighties. It is now seen in a very different light, as the whole plot seems to describe the events around the 9/11 attack and the war against terror, Afghanistan and Iraq. Brooks was the last American "cinema author": he wrote, produced and directed many of his works, including several world-class classics. This deserves to be seen as Brook's political testament, and one to be seriously considered and discussed. Why has this movie not been aggressively distributed right after 9/11? The answer might be in the story itself, which is now mixing story and history.

Times might be right for a critical reassessment of Wrong Is Right. Made during the Reagan era a lot of history has happened subsequently and Richard Brooks may have been a prophet just as Paddy Chayefsky was in Network. The topper may be the election of our current president.

Sean Connery whose international stardom didn't quite guarantee the box office returns for Wrong Is Right that the producers hoped for plays a cynical newscaster an observer on the scene of some history making events.

All starting with the spiritual revelations of Ron Moody playing the monarch of a desert middle eastern kingdom who gets some mystical revelations about starting a holy war. To do so he purchases a pair of suitcase nukes from arms dealer Hardy Kruger and makes alliance with a Mid Eastern terrorist Henry Silva.

There's a presidential election involved as incumbent George Grizzard tries to show himself as tough as the office demands, especially those demands voiced by former President Leslie Nielsen who is trying to do a Grover Cleveland and return to the White House.

The Twin Towers of New York actually play a role here so a faithful remake isn't possible. The end is right out of Duck Soup. Besides those mentioned I enjoyed Rosalind Cash as the Vice President, G.D. Spradlin as the harassed CIA head, and Robert Conrad with the Dickensian name of General Wombat.

He and Connery share the climax in an ending superb and sublime.

This one is a sleeper, check it out.

Wrong Is Right (1982)

Plot In A Paragraph: The theft of two suitcase sized nuclear weapons, and their sale to a terrorist group, leads TV Newsman Patrick Hale (Connery) on an international chase to track them down, and uncover the twisting maze of apparent involvement of US Government agencies.

This is a movie that does not know what it wants to be. It's more than a bit of a mess. It tries to be a political satire, nuclear disaster movie, a paranoid thriller and it fails at being any.

It's not without its moments Leslie Nielsen advising the president by saying "Hit them hard, hit them with everything you got!! Just don't hit those oil wells" and seeing Connery take off his toupee and toss it to one side is another highlight. How many leading men would have the balls to do that?? Connery was never bothered by his hair, and whilst he never wore one away from the cameras, he wore hair pieces in some movies and didn't in others. An admirable trait, that he is that comfortable with himself.

Where it succeeds is being eerily accurate about future events. Islamic terrorism, media bias, reality television and government conspiracy. Connery remains as watchable as always but these are two of his worse hours. Released about 20 years to soon, the movie totally went over the heads of the audiences and flopped so badly in America, the studio changed the title in other markets to The Man With The Deadly Lens and ordered new artwork to make it look more like a Bond movie.

Wrong Is Right grossed $3 million at the domestic box office.