Les requins de la finance

Most people think Larry Gelbart is a genius, as do I.

The story of H. Ross Johnson and the rise of Nabisco is a historical milestone of the 1980's corporate America. The book, Barbarians at the Gate, from which this film was based lays out in detail, every outrageous, and more outrageous step in what ultimately became the biggest corporate acquisition in US history (to date). THIS IS A TRUE STORY.

The principals include James Garner, great as Johnson, the Canadian door-to-door salesman who's rise through the ranks of the American corporate system provides the centerpiece around which the entire story revolves. Jonathan Pryce at his most prick-like is corporate raider Henry Kravitz, a man who's life is so cold, you'd have to heat his wife with a blow torch just to warm her to frigid-the self-indulgent, self-described fashion designer Carolyn Roehm. (The real-life Roehm can be seen intermittently adding festive bunting to the set of Good Morning America during the holidays). Senator Fred Dalton Thompson's Jim Robinson, then chairman of American Express shows us what its really like when the wife controls the purse-strings, as well as you, and everything else in sight.

Great supporting cast includes Peter Riegert, as the since never heard from Peter Cohen, Joanna Cassidy as the legend in her own mind Linda Gosden Robinson, Leilani Sarelle Ferrer (Sharon Stone's gal-pal in Basic Instinct), Jeffrey DeMunn, and David Rasche

If you don't have time to read the book, do see the movie, where Gelbart's wonderful script provided HBO one of their first hits in the made-for-cable genre. Wall to wall laughs, with a little educative value to boot.

After you've watched the film, you might ask yourself---`who paid for all the corporate excess, the inefficiency, stupidity, the feeding of massive egos, and blatant disregard for the ‘little people'?'

Being not a political person, I leave you to your own resolve.

Can a made-for-TV movie about leveraged buy outs ("LBO"s) be funny? Yup.

I haven't read the book but the teleplay by Gelbart is very amusing and sometimes hilarious. Be prepared for the profanity which generates some of the best laughs. "There should be a warning on every pack: Danger, these cigarettes will tear your b***s off."

But it isn't just the swearing that makes this movie as funny as it is. The set ups are marvelously done. The initial big celebration held by RJR Nabisco features a character who suffers a cruel cough every time he tries to light his cigarette until Garner comes over and flicks open a lighter to help him.

All the characters' roles are well written but I wish Fred Dalton Thompson had an expression other than his default -- as if he were watching his daughter marry a biker with a face tattoo. James Garner gets the palm, not just for his unforced and vulgar wit but for a breezy disregard for everything except his own wealth, exemplified in his fleet of jet airplanes with their private hangar. Garner keeps denigrating the pursuit of wealth for it's own sake -- "After all, how many sets of golf clubs can you be buried with?" -- but acts all the way through as if that were his one and only priority. In his own defense, he says indignantly, "I don't plan to be homeless -- or planeless either for that matter."

There must have been enormous pressure on Gelbart and the others involved to turn this movie "serious" towards the end, to bring in cancer and emphysema, a sobbing victim, a military-industrial conspiracy to undermine the health of the proletariat, to expose big business for the angry, villainous, mean-spirited, duplicitous cretins that they are but, thank Bog, Gelbart resisted any tendency to make the movie "about something." He keeps the ending as ironic as the rest of the film.

Poor Garner. He loses his job, "The first time I've been out of work since I was fourteen," he moans, and retires with a severance package amounting (after taxes) to only $23m. Close on a shot of a mansion in Palm Beach.

I don't know if there's been a more perfect made-for-TV movie than this one! If you've ever been involved in a corporate takeover, and I have, you know how perfect this film is. This was the largest corporate takeover in history at the time and the personalities involved are no different today than they were back then. In fact, many of them, particularly Henry Kravis, are still involved in this sort of thing. (I wouldn't want to have to go up against Kravis in a takeover, as few have ever won when KKR was in the mix.) One other reviewer said this film was the "zenith of greed" and it was in the '80s but this sort of greed is exactly what has led to the downfall of Wall Street here in the late-'2000s too! James Garner is perfect in this film, as he is in most anything he acts in, and he truly steals this film from the other actors. Jonathan Pryce is exactly what Henry Kravis is, conniving, brilliant and evil. What really makes this worth watching is the writing skill of Larry Gelbart - a real genius at verbal machinations of all sorts. My favorite line from the film is about the "healthy" cigarette and James Garner delivers! "This cigarette tastes like a turd!" - still cracks me up! If you haven't seen this film, please do sit back and enjoy a priceless bit of entertainment. If you haven't read the book, please find it and read it. Both the film and the book are worth every minute you will spend!

When you look at the dross that Hollywood throws money at and then forces on us at the local multiplex, one wonders why a TV film like this with so much intelligence and wit finds such a limited audience. 'Greed is good' as Gordon Gekko said and so believe just about all the protaganists of this wonderful script. James Garner is such a likeable actor that he makes his behaviour seem almost normal and natural. I'm not a great fan of Jonathan Pryce but he is perfect as the bloodless lizard Henry Travis. Larry Gelbart sustains the humour from beginning to end and the scene in the laboratory must be one of the funniest ever, and in laughing out loud I almost bust a gut as if I had been drawing on one of their new 'healthier' cigarettes.

Creavity does live in Hollywood and this film is testimony to it, so Studio Bosses give it its head and drop the remakes, seqeuls and prequels.

F. Ross Johnson (James Garner) is a born salesman and a self-made millionaire. In 1988, he's the wild-spending high-flying CEO of RJR Nabisco. The stock is stubbornly low. He decides to try to take the company private but he's worried about the debt at first. He is eager to promote the revolutionary new smokeless cigarette Premier but then he's told about its problems. Others become attracted to the deal and it becomes a greedy stampede in the search for a leverage buyout.

This is a solid depiction of 80s Wall Street. It is all James Garner and he drives this movie with glee. It is top notch HBO although I still want a bit more cinematic style. It would be great to have music from the era. There are plenty of great costars but Garner overshadows them all. This is a big time TV movie.