Les requins de la finance

A story of greed, F. Ross Johnson's attempt to rid himself of troublesome shareholders who bug him with cries to curb his excessive management and lifestyle ignites a bidding war for ownership of RJR-Nabisco. Through sessions of number-crunching, men's room meetings, and personal loyalties and competitions, the fate of the company and those involved is decided and standards set for what will be allowed or punished by the captains of industry of the 1980's heyday.

For a movie dealing with such despicable and probably in real life boring characters, the final product is delightful, entertaining, and almost educational. While the level of greed and excess is appalling, you can't help getting caught up in the wheeling and dealing and the competition, rooting for one side or the other while knowing you shouldn't like either one. The greedy CEO or the heartless junk-bond trader (Henry Kravis), take your pick and enjoy. No one is immune to the satire of the film, down to the trophy wives and their manicurists who know more about Wall Street than they do. Still, the comic tone is maintained; as much as you want to hate them, the film avoids moralizing, content just to ridicule and make the audience laugh.

The attention to detail in the movie is simply brilliant. Whenever there is a TV screen or someone lighting a cigarette in the background, pay attention or you may miss a good laugh. It boasts clearly the best costumes of any Wall Street movie, from costume parties to Bush-Quayle hoedowns. Witty and satirical dialogue is accompanied by a well-chosen score. Details and incidents with little to do with the actual plot add to the entertainment value while not distracting from the story. Overall a great movie, funny and cool, makes you think a little: would you really want to be one of them?

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.

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.

"Barbarians at the Gates" is the insane true story of the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco. The stars are James Garner, Jonathan Pryce, Peter Riegert, Joanna Cassidy, Fred Dalton Thompson, Jeffrey DeMunn, Tom Aldredge, and David Rasche.

Upset that the stock price for RJR Nabisco isn't rising, and realizing that new item that was to raise it, Premier Cigarettes, taste and smell horrible, F. Ross Johnson (Garner), the CEO, decides to buy the company at $75 a share, which is $4 more than the stock's highest price. He gets the idea after talking to an expert in the LBO field, Henry Kravis (Pryce). When Kravis finds out that he's not involved in this LBO, he becomes upset. Soon, thanks to press releases that come out too soon, and embarrassing information hitting the papers, there are not only many players in the field, but the price being bid has gone up to $112 a share, meaning that the company will be put into billions and billions of dollars in debt.

The battle of egos is outrageous and all too believable in this story of what became a gigantic takeover contest. The film compresses some of the incidents, but the characters and behind the scenes happenings make it an intriguing, entertaining, and ultimately depressing story. Outside the New York office, one is shown countless homeless people while inside, people are talking about billions of dollars. A true '80s story of greed.

James Garner is fantastic and funny as good old boy, F. Ross Johnson, who gets into a game of oneupmanship with the elegant, quietly intense Kravis - Jonathan Pryce gives a tremendous performance as a man seething underneath while speaking very softly. Peter Riegert, as the man trying to put together the deal for Shearson Lehman is wonderful, as are two actors I've had the privilege of seeing on stage, Tom Aldredge as the head of the board of RJR Nabisco, and David Rasche, as a banker trying to get in on the deal. Fred Dalton Thompson and Joanna Cassidy are a married couple - she's the publicist for the LBO, and he's the CEO of American Express.

After seeing the documentary about Enron, I really thought nothing could top it. This does. If you want to be appalled by corporate behavior, don't miss it.