A Shock to the System (1990)

A Shock to the System is directed by Jan Egleson and adapted to screenplay by Andrew Klavan from the novel written by Simon Brett. It stars Michael Caine, Elizabeth McGovern, Peter Riegert, Will Patton and Swoosie Kurtz. Music is by Gary Chang and cinematography by Paul Goldsmith.Graham Marshall (Caine) is once again overlooked for promotion and once again his harpy wife (Kurtz) belittles him.Then a heated exchange at the train station results in the accidental death of a beggar, and he gets away with it, something which gives Graham some devilish thoughts, one of Satan's light bulbs ignited above his head.By his own admission Michael Caine has readily done films just to pay the bills or build a new house. His success ratio as per great films and performances to bad films and tired performances probably stacks up as 1 in 10, consider this, in this same year he made Bullseye! What we do know though, is that when he gets it right he knocks it out the park and thus makes all his bad films easy to forgive.A Shock to the System is an under valued film on his CV, a brilliantly constructed black comedy that finds Caine effortlessly shifting through the emotional gears. From beat down Milquetoast to ruthless killer with a glint in his eye, Caine plays it to perfection. There's stabs of humour along the way, Caine a natural at this of course, and he even gets a young love interest in the form of the unbelievably cute Lizzie McGovern. Interesting to note that Graham's sex life improves greatly once the killing begins!Driven by an antagonist who toys with the audiences sympathies and moral repulsions, this is a film that's deserving of greater exposure and is ripe for re-evaluation. Great film, great Caine. 9/10

Director Jan Egleson's corporate revenge thriller "A Shock to the System" is the kind of movie where evil trounces evil. Michael Caine is cast as a career-minded adverting executive with a wife and a mortgage who is in line for a richly deserved promotion. Everybody believes that he will get his promotion, including his wife who like to short out their home electric system with her stair master exercise machine. Unfortunately, Graham Marshall (Michael Caine of "Funeral in Berlin) learns to his chagrin that he has lost his promotion to another company employment. The humor underlying this big business melodrama is as hopelessly amoral as the protagonist is murderous. Caine is a genuinely evil. He winds up killing his way to the top of his advertising firm. A family man who rides a commuter train to work in New York City in the morning, Graham isn't pleased about losing his long-sought affair promotion. The first half of the action is slow-going, with lots of exposition, but Egleson ramps up the action considerably during the second half. Our hero Graham Marshall"), isn't pleased when a younger man, Robert Benham (Peter Riegert of "Animal House"), lands the promotion. Caine has to kiss ass while Benham takes the company in a different direction. Meanwhile, Graham is having trouble with his wife, Leslie (Swoosie Kurtz), and her infernal stair-master machine. Virtually, every time that she uses the exercise machine, the stairmaster shortens out the electricity and Graham has to reset it. He gets the surprise of his life when he is shocked trying to reset his breaking box. In short, Graham kills his wife as well as several more corporate big-wigs until he ends up running the business. "A Shock to the System" is a ghoulish bit of nonsense that doesn't wear out its welcome at 88 minutes.

In a time where succeeding at things is more important than just make something good and be satisfied with what you have and what you are "A Shock to the System" is the real article on how things go in our heads everyday when we don't get the things we want, or feel that we deserve them. The things we want to do with everyone in our way are greatly and humored to a certain extent by the character played by Michael Caine, an veteran executive that after not getting the job promotion he was hoping for, given to an incompetent and younger rival, starts to get rid off the people who are ruining his life and starts to concentrate his efforts in trying to be promoted. And there's time to have a small affair with his young and beautiful secretary (Elizabeth McGovern). By getting rid off, I mean in the Patrick Bateman style. To him those people, his demanding wife, his former colleague now current boss, they doesn't deserve to live.Viciously funny, well-acted and more relevant to our times than to the yuppie era when this was released, "A Shock to the System" is perhaps one of the finest examples of dark humor to ever be used on screen. It's not violent like one might think it could be, or ridiculously comical neither so serious. It makes good statements about the day to day pressures, the lack of reward one has while working hard at everything, but such statement is presented in a light and entertaining way. And it's such a pleasure to see Michael Caine carefully plan his actions and later desperately trying to get away with murder. The one involving his wife (Swoosie Kurtz) is priceless. It took some real time to make me laugh but when that part came in, with his reaction on the phone, I really knew I was watching something special. It's a electric and powerful performance in a underrated film. My only problem comes to the investigation led by Will Patton's character. It's too unlikely that he was the responsible for investigating the wife's "accidental" death and the boat explosion, just with the logic that there's too many deaths around Caine's character. The movie would benefit more without the detective character, or reduce to the minimum the coincidences of him following the executive. Here's a small film that accomplishes so much more than the big ones with larger than life budgets and no story to tell. This one has one to tell and it's a very good one. 9/10

A fairly mediocre movie. Only Michael Caine's performance rescues it from being truly awful. The original novel by Simon Brett is 100 times superior. I recommend you read it, and you'll see how far the film version falls short of the mark.The original novel was an entertaining crime thriller. The movie strives to be a black comedy, but misses. The real problem is the ending, or rather the lack of one. In the original novel,I won't spoil it for you, but Graham Marshall gets his well-deserved comeuppance in a supremely ironic fashion. The film version just stops abruptly, with no real denouement or climax. So, we don't get to enjoy seeing his destruction, and because he's such an unsympathetic character, we also don't enjoy seeing him get away with it.And that "bippity-boppity-boo" stuff is just annoying.