Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
James Garner | ... | F. Ross Johnson | |
Jonathan Pryce | ... | Henry Kravis | |
Peter Riegert | ... | Peter Cohen | |
Joanna Cassidy | ... | Linda Robinson | |
Fred Thompson | ... | Jim Robinson (as Fred Dalton Thompson) | |
Leilani Sarelle | ... | Laurie Johnson | |
Matt Clark | ... | Edward A. Horrigan Jr. | |
Jeffrey DeMunn | ... | H. John Greeniaus | |
David Rasche | ... | Ted Forstmann | |
Tom Aldredge | ... | Charlie Hugel | |
Graham Beckel | ... | Don Kelly | |
Peter Dvorsky | ... | George Roberts | |
Peter Frechette | ... | Robert Allegro | |
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Judy Altman | ... | Robinson's Aide |
Bruce Beatty | ... | Anthony the Pizza Man |
F. Ross Johnson, the CEO of RJR Nabisco decides that the time is ripe to take over his own company and enlists American Express. This kicks off a tide of other firms swarming in to tender offers. The outline of the film follows the actual takeover of the RJR Nabisco empire in a tongue in cheek way. Written by John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
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.