THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS
A film review by Greg Woods
Copyright 1987 Greg Woods
This is Michael J. Fox's ("Family Ties," BACK TO THE FUTURE) new movie. It is about a Kansas kid (Fox) who comes to New York to make it to the top. Old plot. It is fairly predictable all the way through, and requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief to enjoy, as Fox's character is repeatedly doing stupid, outrageous things that have no apparent purpose other than to get him into funny, sticky situations. Nevertheless, I found it highly entertaining and a pretty good parody of the business executive world. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but the basic idea is that Fox gets a job in the mail room and, not content to make his way up through "normal" channels, also takes over the office of a recently canned executive, making decisions and coming up with ideas for how the company should be run (all of them good ones, of course). The movie covers office politics (and office sexuality), and has some pretty stereotypical characters, like the company head who is married but always fools around on the side, the female executive who got there by screwing the boss (but of course turns out to be competent in her own right; after all, this IS the 1980's) and of course, the boss's sexually frustrated wife who has the hots for Fox.
Despite the fact that the resolution of almost every scene is predictable, I enjoyed this movie and found myself laughing all the way through. I did find the plot a little forced and contrived, so I give it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale in use in this group. As a comparison, the person who recently posted a very positive review of RAISING ARIZONA and who referred to MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL as "a wasted afternoon" would probably NOT like this movie. On the other hand, if you enjoyed OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, you'll probably want to catch this one too.
--Greg UUCP: {hplabs, seismo, nbires, noao}!hao!woods CSNET: woods@ncar.csnet ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA INTERNET: woods@hao.ucar.edu
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