kenjha After failing to get an expected promotion, an ad executive takes revenge on those responsible. It is a decent premise for a black comedy, and filmmakers carry on as if they are being clever and witty. However, the script leaves a lot to be desired. It's too cartoonish to be taken seriously as a crime drama and not wicked enough to be taken as a black comedy. The murder plans are too easy. Caine is well cast as the man who feels he has been wronged by society. Oddly, he provides the narration in third person. Although their roles are limited, McGovern, Riegert, Kurtz, and Patton provide good support. Given their age difference of nearly thirty years, it's a little creepy seeing Caine romance McGovern.

projectmogul Almost effortlessly accomplished, A Shock to the System absolutely exudes confidence and remains a minor - if largely still unknown - classic. Caine is on real form as the tale's moral black hole, conjuring a performance of occasionally genuine surprise (witness Caine's hilarious reaction to his wife's death, or his utter bewilderment/rage over being passed over for promotion).With Gary Chang's dexterous score and the production's nimble, well-framed cinematography, it's one of those rare films that allows you to absolutely relax, confident that you are in good hands. A similar case could be made for Liliana Cavani's superb Ripley's Game which is charted by an equally immoral (but again highly satisfying) compass.

BaronBl00d Graham Marshall seems to have everything: a beautiful, dutiful wife. a great high-paying job in advertisement. A large, sprawling country estate where he can commute to the big city. Trouble starts for Graham when all this becomes dubious and questions arise about just how wonderful all these things really are. At its core A Shock to the System makes one think about what is important in life. For Graham it is really none of these things - because in some ways he never really had them. This is a first-rate black comedy along the lines of a Kind Hearts and Coronets(no Alec Guiness playing eight roles here) with Michael Caine giving a wickedly funny, humanizing portrayal of a man just trying to keep up with what is expected with the corporate ladder and maintaining the perching power that comes with being at the top. Caine, to borrow another reviewer's succinct modifier, is very Machivellian as he whittles away at all those people that stand in his way of keeping/maintaining/achieving power. Caine does it while making us like him. A true feat as we see him really do quite horrible things to quite horrible people. Based on Simon Brett's novel A Shock to the System is a morality play with no moral other than the end does indeed justify the means. Michael Caine glides through the role of this middle-age man being passed up at home and at work with charm, pathos, and his ever present wry sense of humour. This film is just fun and the dialog and script in general generate numerous good scenes as well as fresh plot developments. Aiding Caine is a well-experienced cast of good quality actors like Swoosie Kurtz as his hair-brained, belittling wife, Elizabeth McGovern as his beautiful, trustworthy secretary, John McMartin as his over-the-hill, tired, flat boss George, and Peter Riegert as the new young buck out to wipe the floor with anyone that stands in his yuppie way to the top of the business. Throughout the film we get Michael Caine narrating to us his thoughts and his mental evolution. Some of the best lines come here. Although very funny, depraved too I will give a bit as well, A Shock to the System pokes fun at the corporate environment, the Yuppie Revolution, and the whole keeping up with the Jones' mentality that affects American society so thoroughly today. Director Jan Egleson does a masterful job making us care and like Caine despite his killing for the horrible reason of supporting some kind of Social Darwinism. All of the victims are very unlikable characters embodying some catastrophic fatal flaw of what it takes to rise to the top. Definitely worth a look and easily the easiest way to succeed in business without even trying.

sol (There are Spoilers) When senior executive Graham Marshall, Michael Caine, was passed over for a promotion at the Wall Street advertisement firm Gibbs for this young arrogant and back-stabbing butt-kisser Robert Benham, Peter Riegert, his whole world collapsed around him. Being told by everyone at the firm, including Benham, that it was a given that he'll get the promotion Graham felt that he was screwed because he's not the team player that Benham is not because he wasn't fit for the job. This had Graham in a very ugly mood as he went down to the Fulton Street subway station on his way home after work. Being accosted by this panhandling homeless man, Milce Cicchett, who wouldn't take no for an answer Graham in a fit of anger pushed the annoying man away and before he knew it he fell on the tracks and was overran and killed by a passing subway train.Quickly fleeing the subway station and sweating bullets Graham takes a taxi to Grand Central in order to get his ride, via Metro North, home in the suburbs. It's then when realizing that he got away with murder,or in this case homicide, Graham suddenly feels that he tapped into some kind of mother-load of power that he never knew existed, or that he had. Graham feeling invincible will kill and kill and kill again without any fear of getting caught and his victims would be the people whom he feels have been holding him back from achieving that greatness that has been eluding him over the years; his annoying and pesky wife Leslie, Swoosie Kurtz, and his fellow employees Benham and his computer crazed and very disrespectful, towards him, sidekick Henry Park, Philip Moon.Graham even though he murders some half dozen persons in the movie is far too clever to get himself caught by leaving any evidence connecting him to his crimes. The person in charge of the police investigating him Lt. Laker, Will Patton, is so frustrated in getting Graham to admit his crimes that he just about gives up before the movie is half over. Let. Laker is left t doing an imitation Let. Columbo act as he helplessly bumbles his way through the remainder of the film.After offing his pain in the a** wife Leslie, by electrocuting her, Graham strikes up a hot and heavy affair with his fellow Gibbs employee Stella Anderson, Elizabeth McGovern. Later Graham makes an almost fatal mistake in his effort to implicate his now very depressed and suicidal friend George Brewster, John McMartain, in a double murder of Benham & Park,that he committed. Graham feeling that Brewster will never live long enough to know or care that he's a suspect in their deaths. It turned that Graham was right as Brewster, who was forced to retired from Gibbs, gulped down a bottle of sleeping pills as he waited for his train home in Grand Central Station and fell asleep forever.****SPOILER ALERT***Stella got a hold of a lighter that can connect Graham to Benham & Parks, who were blown to pieces on Benham pleasure boat, murders. Graham with his new found power of persuasion got a numb and almost hypnotized Stella to give the lighter back to him and in the end, with another murder under his belt, Graham literately got away with murder. Graham son became the head honcho at Gibbs something that was well beyond his reach when he was just a garden verity god-fearing and law abiding citizen.It's hard to like this movie since it's hero Graham Marshall is nothing but a cold blooded killer who has absolutely no remorse in the crimes that he commits. It's even a bit too much to classify "A Shock to the System" a black comedy since there's nothing at all funny in what Graham does and the tragic suicide of his friend George being shown as if it was funny would shock anyones system watching it in how both callous and heartless, and not at all funny, it came across. The only reason for watching the film is the very good acting of both Michael Caine, who narrates most of the movie in the third person, and Elizabeth McGovern who was the most likable and feeling person in the movie.