DISCLOSURE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1995 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *** 1/2
DISCLOSURE is the latest of the Michael Crichton's (the dinosaur guy's) novels to be made into a movie. It stars Michael Douglas as the department head hoping to be made a VP and to get rich off of the stock options of the computer company for whom he works. His old flame played by Demi Moore comes out of the field to get the promotion and become his boss. She is promoted by the CEO played by Donald Sutherland. The CEO wants to make a $100,000,000 from a buy out that is scheduled to happen in four days.
In the beginning of the movie Moore attempts to rape Douglas in her office the first night after she becomes his boss. The rest of the movie is about the sexual harassment charges and countercharges, but there is much more going on in the plot that just that.
This is one of those can you suspend disbelief or not movies. You have to believe or ignore that in a meeting of mixed sexes in a modern computer company you could have constant explicit conversations about sex including explicit--very explicit joking. You have to believe that a boss would rape an employee in his or her office on their first day. Finally, you have to believe that women can be guilty of rape in an office setting. I managed to just ignore the plausibility of most of it and accept the rest as well maybe it could happen. If you can get through the first ten minutes, you are in for a great show.
The movie moves with the speed of a freight train that is accelerating toward the big merger in 4 days. The movie has the days of the week printed in stark white sans serif letters on a totally black background as the days switch making you feel like you are reading one of those exciting books that you just can not put down as it races to its conclusion.
The three leads in the show are all great and perfectly cast. Originally Annette Bening was to play Moore's part, but Bening got pregnant. I cannot see Bening doing near as good as Moore - who had a tough part to play and did it extremely well. Sutherland was great as a classic slimeball type CEO who cared not a whit about his employees. His sole goal in life was to become a billionaire.
Douglas was the real star of the show. I thought he was good enough to deserve consideration for an Oscar nomination. You could feel the panic in him. Okay, it was similar to some other parts he has played, but he was, nevertheless, terrific in his role.
The script was very funny in parts. Lots of loud laughter in the theater. There is a two word piece of dialog at the end that Douglas whispers that had the audience applauding, laughing, and cheering at the same time. One of the other many memorable lines was when Moore said that their company's "technology was so good it gave people what religion was always promising, but never has been able to deliver."
There was no need to have the implausible beginning. They could have gotten rid of the non-believable constant explicit office sex talk, and they could have had Moore come on to Douglas in a more believable fashion. This is my only criticism of the film, and the only reason it did not get my top rating.
The movie runs lightning fast and 2:00 long. It is rated R for sex and profanity. I think it would be okay for some of the older teenagers. I recommend the movie strongly to adults especially those who like mysteries because that is what it ultimately turns out to be. I give DISCLOSURE *** 1/2.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEWED WRITTEN ON: December 9, 1994
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews