Word: film
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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Once Marlon Brando's disguise has been penetrated and the great eccentric has been identified, such suspense as The Formula manages to generate comes to an abrupt and early end, though whatever fun and frolic the film offers depends solely on his occasional presence as the comically menacing leader of an oil cartel. Perhaps one should say the oil cartel. The movie traffics heavily in this kind of simple-minded paranoia. It insists that evil lurks in a single all-powerful force possessing the power to warp men's minds, condition their behavior and, of course, bump them...
...country-boy accent that makes his cynicism terribly appealing-especially in the bloody and lugubrious context of this emotionally unpunctuated movie. His performance is not truly good-it lacks a real edge of sharpness-but it is often funny, a kind of comment on the heavy-handedness of the film...
...terribly convoluted, but not especially interesting; John Avildsen's direction alternates between flatness and strain. Scott gives an imitation of his old force, but there is a lack of conviction in his playing that is, perhaps, understandable. If he is going to make this kind of film, he should learn from Brando how to take the money and hide out behind the makeup. As for Keller, she is just impossible, an actress whose monotony of tone dims everything she touches...
This sort of thing will almost certainly offend Christie purists, and it may puzzle those few remaining gentlefolk who are uninterested in the offstage carryings-on of picture people. But the film does capture, in satirically exaggerated tones, certain recognizable film types and the hyperbolic, hyperactive way they address one another during the many waiting-around hours their peculiar occupations impose upon them. This does not entirely compensate for the short weight this picture gives mystery fans or for its technical shoddiness. But the good lines make Mirror more fun to watch than it has any right...
...about the value of human life in our society that often shows itself in the way many folks treat handicapped people." These are sharp words, especially coming from a young woman who is a successful commercial artist, a bestselling author and the star of a two-hour, $2 million film version of her life that is being shown all over...