tillzen I saw this film when I was 18, and at 51 I realize what a dope I was. This is sloppy 70's film-making at its WORST. Dreyfus is (like the entire film) using cutesy shorthand in lieu of acting. One need only look at the constant continuity errors to realize that everybody must have been either high, or thought making a quality film was too bourgeois. I "got" the 60's. I was a teen in the 70's, and "The Big Fix" is typical of the hipster coding that allowed the excesses that typified Richard Dreyfus "the drug years". What was well written wisenheimer dialog in "Jaws" and "The Good-Bye Girl" is here reduced to winging it, and the wires of laziness clearly show the puppet to be merely in motion; mimicking performance. What a silly, and disingenuous waste of time this film still is!

Aristides-2 Summary is a small point but typical of this poorly thought out script/story. *When Wine knocks on Eppis's door he's shown in because he's mistaken for a soccer coach who's there to instruct Eppis' young son. Sometime later, the world's worst hit men show up, but Eppis' kid is still there. What happened to the soccer coach?World's worst hit men? It's daylight in an upscale California suburb but without any inquiry the two "pro" killers start machine gunning......the outside of the house with no one in sight!Speaking of Eppis, he's being sought for serious crimes committed during *the sixties but is a flamboyant and successful ad man or publicist, hardly a good cover for someone of his notoriety. Oh yes, Eppis is seen, multiple times, in news footage of perhaps no longer than ten years previously. Then he looked a bit like Geraldo Rivera. Well, since in 1974 (the time of the movie, which one character sets by saying, 'I haven't seen so-and-so in six years,since back in '68', Eppis is played by Murray Abraham, he not only must have had plastic surgery, but cranial surgery as well; he doesn't remotely resemble his earlier (and shown) self.We also have Sam, the campaign manager, very public, very visible, Procari, Jr.(John Lithgow), the son of the wicked, super wealthy, super right wing, Procari, Sr. (Fritz Weaver), who a few years earlier had bankrolled a radical group who apparently committed crimes of such enormity that two their members are in prison for life, no parole. Well, doesn't someone, anyone, recognize the long missing (suposedly) Sam, Procari, Jr.? And speaking of being sent to prison for life, how does Eppis, shown in Federal custody in the sixties and found guilty at the same time as the others, escape being sent to prison? This is never dealt with nor explained.Wine's two young children are given dialog that no child this side of Hollywood would ever think of saying and the scenes with them and Wine make one reach for one's pistol.Finally, though there's so much more false and bad in the movie to be mentioned, the main evil second banana, Pak Chung (?), is shown operating an extremely sophisticated remote electronic guidance system that allows him to drive, at a great distance, a van loaded with explosives. When confronted by Wine, known to Chung as a private detective whose once- again girlfriend his group has beaten to death.....confronted with an obviously angered Wine, with a gun drawn, this clever rascal MAKES A CLUMSY MOVE TO ATTACK AND IS SHOT TO DEATH!. What a truly poorly written, ugly movie.

berrys1178 The Big Fix is a mystery that does not answer every question that it raises, but it nails the Zeitgeist of the late 60's from a vantage point 10 years later. I have only seen it once, when it first came out and I have looked for it ever since.The story is slow to develop with Moses Wine (Dreyfuss) having trouble with seemingly every aspect of his life. We learn that he feels displaced in time, and cannot get past the radical time in his life. I and many others have had those same feelings in the 35+ years since.The sense of confusion and struggle fits exactly the feelings many of us experienced at the time. Taught to respect the police by our Greatest Generation parents, we often found that we were at the top of the police list of suspects for anything from subversion to bad manners and bad dress. The sense of alienation that I felt at the time permeates the viewing. I may have read too much of myself into it; if so, The Big Fix evoked it from my own life.Best scenes without spoiling the story: Leon Redbone's "I Wanna Be Seduced" while Moses gets ready for a date with Lila Shay (Anspach).Moses at the TV station reviewing scenes of past demonstrations; the images are shown projected on his face. No real detail is visible except the tears on his cheeks. Powerful.The reunion of old friends as they dance around the swimming pool of the house that was built by selling out the old radical values.Finally, a sense of something incomplete at the end. The mystery solved, but every question not answered. How true to life!

tinman-7 An excellent film for Dreyfus. At this point (1978), the best known films with Dreyfus were "American Graffiti"(1973), "Jaws"(1975), "The Goodbye Girl"(1976) and "Close Encounters"(1977). Dreyfus did a great job inviting the viewer in and sharing his (Moses Wine's) feelings about the late 60's and its effects on the students at Univ of California Berkley. Wine wanders aimlessly to find out who is pitting various ethnic and political groups, etc. against each other. He does not find out who the true enemy is until the end of the movie. You won't either. John Lithgow also appears in one of his first films. Look for Mandy Patinkin as the pool cleaner. F. Murray Abraham and Susan Anspach also star.