L'uomo terminale

Although this movie is weak as a 'thriller', its real power is its evocative sense of place and the emotional texture of science as it was seen in the 1970s -- sombre and dystopian, yet strangely attractive.

The plot centres on a group of scientists and doctors who are pushing the frontiers of neuroscience by implanting a computerized chip in the brain of a man (George Segal) afflicted with terrible seizures. The chip is programmed to shock the patient's brain each time a seizure is about to happen. The effort is prestigious, the technology flawless, and the doctors, scientists and technicians react to the initial success of the project with a certain conceited arrogance. Only when the the chip malfunctions, and the patient breaks out of the hospital and starts killing people, does the veneer of omnipotence and professionalism fall away, revealing in the scientists ambition, uncertainty, and humanity.

Segal does a good job of portraying the wildly changing emotions of a man who's mind is under the control of a computer. At the push of a button he can be made to laugh, cry, scream, babble like a child, or even become aroused, as the computer chip in his brain explores his mental map. It's a study that would be interesting to fans of Oliver Sacks.

The most interesting moments of the movie are the early ones, where the patient interacts with his dispassionate doctors in the sterile, streamlined chromium world of the hospital. The doctors and scientists seem like mechanical, perfected reflections of the technologies that surround them. The messy humanity of the patient, demonstrated through humour, fear, weakness and anger, stands in contrast to his surroundings, and it is not surprising to the audience when he disappears from his hospital room.

Scenes of the doctors in tuxedos and evening gowns at a dinner party while a shiny computer console monitors their ailing patient lend the robotic professionals a strange, formal humanity, at the same moment in the movie when their own fallibility begins to be revealed. Both technology and technologists promise perfection, and in the end both are revealed as imperfect and unable to overcome the challenges of the human condition - sickness, insanity, violence and death.

Once the patient leaves the hospital, the movie shifts to a more conventional 'crazed murderer' theme, and things become less interesting. It is this shift that cripples Terminal Man and prevents it from being the science fiction classic it might have been. The movie closes with a disappointing, clichéd 'Big Brother' riff on mind control and the future.

This is still a movie worth watching, however, if only to get a glimpse of how the 1970s saw the near future. There are endless details for the technophile, from absurdly technological architecture to atomic batteries to ancient video terminals to mainframe computers to futuristic touchtone telephones. The technological landscape is presented with a glistening newness that evokes movies like The Anderson Tapes, Coma, Westworld, and The Andromeda Strain (the last three of which, like Terminal Man, were written by Michael Crichton). The set design and the soundtrack (mostly Bach, No. 25 in the Goldberg Variations) create an inviting, peaceful sense of space that stands at odds with the tension of the plot. The clean, elegant world of Terminal Man is one in which you would want to live.

Watch Terminal Man for the sets, for the music, and for its nostalgic sense of a forgotten future. Back in the 70s, this was the future everyone was expecting, if not hoping to find right around the corner. Like Andromeda Strain, Coma and the Anderson Tapes, Terminal Man is less a thriller and more a cultural time capsule. Get comfortable in your beanbag chair, turn on the lava lamp, and enjoy.

I was looking for a bit of trivia about this film and made the mistake of reading the reviews here. My jaw dropped when I saw the overwhelming opinion that this movie is worthless because it's too slow. Has everyone been too brain-deadened by recent Hollywood thrill rides to appreciate a patiently unfolding story? The Terminal Man is very creepy, very scary, and is acted with amazing skill by even the smallest of bit players. Each one of the doctors involved in the experiment, for example, carries his or her own personal baggage, and it's that baggage which clouds their reason and makes true progress impossible. The message of the film seems to be that no matter how advanced science becomes, people will still be people, and our petty prides and jealousies will tear down every accomplishment. That's the brilliance of this movie; it takes a broad sci-fi theme yet reduces it to its most unpredictable element: the personalities of the persons involved. There are so many amazing scenes in this film where a line or two of casual conversation reveals so much about the power games being played between the speakers. On the outside, these scientists are titans of technology; on the inside, they're closer to the befuddled old men of the comedy "BALL OF FIRE". The only one who thinks with heart as well as head is the Joan Hackett character, and the clash between her and the good 'ol boys of science is both profound and heartbreaking.

I urge anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size to ignore the negative comments and give this film a chance. Viewed with an open mind and a little patience, this movie becomes quite an exiting experience. It's one of the greatest sci-fi/horror films of all time, and has never gotten its due respect. It's the kind of film we could use more of, and the fact it's considered boring by today's audiences is very sad proof of the dumbing-down effect of Hollywood clap-trap. We're used to movies that ask you to set back while you're force-fed the story. The Terminal Man requires that you watch what's happening, listen to what's being said, and think about what's between the lines. If you can't do that, stick with Vin Diesel films.

This is a superior film with brilliant set design and costuming. From the sterility of the Hospital (known only as "Babel" from the subtly placed and nearly invisible emblems), to the mind-numbing anonymity of the staff uniforms, few films are as well dressed as this. Only the dissenting staff, Dr's Ross and Manon, show any hint of individuality in their work apparel. Ironically it is Benson the patient, supposedly insane, who displays the most humanity of all, with the possible exception of Dr. Ross. Segal was brilliant, and severely under-utilized in the film. Perhaps the filmmakers thought it necessary to de-emphasize Benson, in order to illustrate the dehumanization of the hospital and its staff. But a bit more contrast could have been provided IMO. Still, the film is excellent nonetheless.

Today's audiences however, with their short attention spans, will likely be permanently disappointed. To those who complain that this film is "slow" (and they are legion); I would say to either learn some patience, or simply avoid the film and go back to watching action/adventure.

While made in the early 1970's, it is highly relevant to today's world as well. Replace the "wires in the brain" with today's over-prescribed Ritalin, SSRI's, and other similar drugs, and you will see the point.

This is an excellent movie which deserves to be on DVD, with commentary by Crichton, Hodges and/or Segal. They are all still with us as of 4/2008 (Sadly Ms. Hackett is not). The sooner the better.

I'm a big admirer of the writer Michael Crichton. Perhaps I'm a bigger admirer of his work than I am a fan of it, if that makes sense. I admire and tremendously respect Crichton because he was one of the sole Sci-Fi writers in history able to create an almost entirely new sub genre and yet remain creative and versatile within that sub genre. Even though his finest stories like "The Andromeda Strain", "Westworld", "The Terminal Man" and even "Jurassic Park" are seemingly very differing tales, they basically do share the same basic concept, namely artificial technology and/or science that develops and turns into a giant menace to the same human that created it. I'm also a big admirer of Michael Crichton because he was a very intelligent person – probably one of the only Sci- Fi/thriller novelists with a Harvard Medical School degree – and thus knew very well what he was writing about. The films he directed, as well as the ones adapted from his novels, are often extremely complex, talkative and stuffed with professional jargon. That's not because he was pretentious, but because he was an expert. Crichton referred to "The Terminal Man" as the worst adaptation of his work, but maybe that has to do with personal resentment because he was initially set to adapt his own novel and direct, but got fired by the directors.

"The Terminal Man" is everything but a bad film, although it's fairly easy to see why many people dislike it. The brief plot description promises an exciting concept of a man suffering from psychosis who agrees to participate in a scientific/medical experiment in which a tiny computer is implanted in his brain that will keep his violent impulses under control. Although seemingly successful at first, the man's brain somehow becomes addicted to the little shocks that the electrodes are sending out, resulting in the triggering of even more violent impulses. If you read it like this, "The Terminal Man" sounds like a tense, exciting and action-packed thriller, but instead it's actually a slow-brooding, atmospheric and integer drama. It all is a bit misleading perhaps… The premise speaks of "A man suffering from a mental condition that often causes him to become homicidal", but we are only introduced to Harry Benson when he obediently awaits the operation and remains very calm and docile at all times. There are only a few photographs to indicate his violent nature. Then the operation itself is almost shown integrally, which raises the impression to last forever. Then, finally, the plot describes how Benson – and I quote – "escapes from the hospital and goes on a spree of violence and murder". Well, first of all, there's a long period of time between the operation and the escape in which barely anything happens. The so-called spree of violence and murder is somewhat exaggerated as well, since Benson only commits one murder (although admittedly a very savage one). However, to compensate for the lack of action, we do receive – next to the intelligent and tense script – a continuous series of extraordinary beautiful camera angles, compositions and set-pieces. Director Mike Hodges ("Get Carter", "Pulp") literally turns the film into a work of art, with stunning cinematography and exquisite use of classical music. I honestly wished for "The Terminal Man" to benefice from a faster pacing, a bit more background to Harry Benson's character, a bit less medical mambo-jumbo and a few more brutish murders.

This movie has a unique tone that's hard to define. "Bleak" comes to mind but is inadequate. It's as if Bleak came alive and made an even bleaker movie.

That's one thing you need to know going in. The other is not that it's slow, but that it spends a ridiculous amount of time on the fictitious surgery. For example, the doctor almost hits a vein in the patient's brain which would have killed him. However, a surgical mistake can happen in any sort of surgery and this lengthy bit doesn't address the far more interesting ethical issues.

This is in contrast to The Andromeda Strain. In that film, there are enormously detailed and lengthy scenes of the Wildfire lab. But the difference is that movie was more about the scientists and the lab than the germ itself. Here, that's just not the case.

There's other parts of the film that provide a weird atmosphere yet seem entirely irrelevant. The doctor goes to a strip club to find Segal and while I like the music played, it's hard to see why this is here considering it's mostly focused on the stripper stage.

The far more interesting issues are of course the ethical ones.

The treatment they give this man is directly compared to lobotomies, a very dark page of medical history. After they install the device, they start activating different electrodes to see what happens... this isn't that much different than the lobotomy performed on Rosemary Kennedy where they kept cutting while talking to her to see the effects. It's incredibly chilling and plausible.

A curiosity here is that there is essentially an ad for Scientology on the radio in the background in one scene. This makes sense considering their disdain for psychiatry which was rather well founded at least at the time.

There's frustration here in that one huge theme seems to have been all but ignored-- that the patient was convinced computers would take over. I suppose the idea might have been that Segal was increasingly acting robotic... in several scenes when he's walking he does seem like a mindless drone. But I just saw him as a zonked out zombie and zombies are standard horror fare. It didn't occur to me that that might have been the idea until I was writing this review.

Anyway, it's a fascinating watch as long as you know what you're getting into. It's definitely NOT a thriller. There are many striking visuals, like a long curious zoom on a parrot.