No.121 : The Passenger (1975)

The Passenger at the IMDb

 Jack Nicholson stars in this ponderous two hour drama that isn’t as smart or as insightful as you’d expect.

Jack plays a jaded war correspondent trying and failing to interview some rebels in Africa so he can complete his film. Much of the opening ten minutes is devoid of dialogue as Jack frustrations mirror those of the viewer who is yelling ‘get on with it!’. He eventually gets stranded on a sand dune and abandons his Landover after giving it a thorough spanking with a spade. He returns to his hotel and ponders over his next move.

He visits the room next door to talk with a businessman with whom he has struck up a friendship but finds that he has died of a heart attack. For reasons not immediately apparent Jack switches passport photos with the dead man and goes to reception to report ‘his’ death. He then assumes the dead man’s life and starts to keep his appointments. On recovering documents from a left luggage locker he learns his new life is that of a gun runner and he quickly harvests a fat wad of cash when he manages to bluff his buyers.

Back in London Jack’s office are making enquiries, with his wife, who is having an affair, also keen to learn of Jack’s last days. When Jack spots his old boss in Barcelona seeking a meeting with his new identity he asks a young student to grab his stuff from the hotel. This helpful girl (Maria Schneider) happily plays along and soon the pair are travelling around Spain in an open top car and making whoopee.

It’s not long however before the police, Jack’s wife and boss and the duped gun buyers are all closing in and we have to wonder if it was worth all the effort.

I didn’t like this film much. It was too full of its own importance with long ponderous scenes meandering by with nothing to say. I got the ideas being offered about identity and isolation and trying to break free from the constraints of society but it just came across as a bit of a caper that hadn’t been thought through.

Jack is always watchable but it was hard to engage with his selfish and random character. His literally life changing decision came across as a whim and he didn’t really do much with it apart from get jiggy with the lovely Maria, which is fair enough I suppose.

I know it wasn’t the focus of the drama but a bit more danger from the gun buyers would have been welcome as two hours of Jack being a bit lost and wistful was too much to take. With the long investment in the film the ending was a letdown and although the single 8 minute shot may be seen as innovative it just came over as lazy editing and unfocused film making.

I can see this playing well to the art cinema audience with plenty of room left for conjecture and theorizing about Jack’s motivations and the metaphors employed. For me this barely qualified as entertainment and although the premise was interesting the execution was overlong and too ponderous to garner half marks.

THE Tag Line - Passenger Taxes!  46%

No.120 : The Juggler (1953)

The Juggler at the IMDb

Kirk Douglas stars in this black and white drama from 1953, as the titular ball manipulator.

It’s 1949 and boatloads of Jews are arriving in their new homeland of Israel following the end of World War 2. Amongst them are camp survivors including Kirk, who has no actual baggage but emotional baggage to spare. He’s managed to keep his slick haircut, but we know his time in the camp has left him a broken man.

Rather insensitively the Israelis put the camp survivors up in a camp and it’s not long before Kirk starts to get cabin fever. Any brush with authority signals loud musical cues that suggest Kirk is like a trapped animal. After a day in the camp he decides to head off to see if he can find peace elsewhere. Of course this is never going to happen and when an officer asks for his papers in a routine check Kirk kicks his head in and runs off thinking he’s killed the curious copper.

Kirk's chiselled jow and elaborate hair atract the attention of the locals and his tale of being an American tourist convinces no one. He does however meet up with a teenage lad in the park ; no, not like that, and the two go on the road together. The boy is impressed with Kirk’s juggling skills and his line in lame puns. The two arrive at a romote kibbutz but stray into a mine field that sees the boy blown up - but not fatally.

Meanwhile the cops are piecing together Kirk’s trail and put up some wanted posters that soon bring fresh leads. The kibbutz has no telephones so Kirk can relax and soon falls for a lonely Jewish girl who has a nice line in short shorts. Kirk finds it difficult to commit but agrees to put on a show for the kids with the help of his now somewhat healed up young friend. As the show gets underway the cops close in - will Kirk entertain the urchins or will his fate be a hail of bullets that signals there are no excuses for bobby bashing?

This was a strange film that was almost a travel brochure for the new state of Israel with some policeman punching added for good measure. There are lots of scenes of industrious Israelis building things or having a big community dance at sun down.

Kirk is portrayed as a damaged man from the off with his concentration camp tattoo flashed regularly so we know our sympathies lie with him despite his poor circus act and penchant for punching. He’s not that sympathetic but he does command your attention, although that’s not saying much given that much of the cast appear to be locals roped in by the production to deliver a couple of wooden lines.

There isn’t much in the way of social commentary with the Germans barely getting a mention. Kirk’s demons are to do with confinement and authority and they make the point well that it doesn’t matter who wears the uniform if you have issues, like Kirk.

The travelogue aspect is well done although I wasn’t buying the romance angle. Kirk’s juggling was quite good but his clown act and hand puppetry work was sorely lacking. The message about healing old scars and understanding mental illness were rote large throughout and at no point was the outcome in doubt. It was however an undemanding 90 minutes and although not worth juggling your schedule to catch it’s worth a look if you chance upon it.

THE Tag Line - Go for the Juggler, if it’s on.  64%

No.119 : The Sandpiper (1965)

The Sandpiper at the IMDb

 Richard Burton and Liz Taylor star in this 1960s drama that sees him as a priest wrestling with his conscience and her as an artist struggling to keep herself in a succession of tight outfits.

The film opens with a young lad shooting a fawn with an air gun as his bohemian mother Liz paints on the beach below. We cut to the judge’s office and learn that the killing is the boy’s third offence in a few months. Liz as a maverick single mother defends her son’s right to explore his emotions but the judge is having none of it and demands the boy goes to Burton’s reform school.

We meet Burton in his priestly garb as he discusses his plans for the boy. No, not like that - he’s married and we are sure there is a spark from the off with the bra-less mother. Burton engineers excuses to visit Liz’s Big Sur beach house and is impressed when she tapes up a sandpiper’s broken wing with tape and a straw. As a metaphor the bird with a broken wing is a bit clumsy but we hope it will fly again - a bit like the buttoned down Burton.

Liz initially plays the horny headmaster along and discusses her plans as she modestly poses for her sculptor friend Charles Bronson. She does however soon fall for the pent up priest and soon the pair embark on a passionate affair. Burton’s life is complicated by his wife and the investors he’s pumping for a new chapel.

As the sandpiper gets ready to fly the coop Burton has to decide where his loyalties lie and whether Liz’s beach shack is worth giving up his cassock and twin setted wife. Liz meanwhile is starting to sell her art off the back of her notoriety - will she up sticks to San Francisco and take her annoying son out of Burton’s school? Does she love the potent priest or is he a means to an end?

Despite a screeching trumpet lead soundtrack I enjoyed this tale of passion and morals. Liz and Burton certainly crackle on the screen and this is possibly the only film of hers where Liz is genuinely curvy and sexy. She doesn’t quite convince as the carefree beach dweller but as least she’s better than ‘sculptor’ Charlie Bronson - c’mon Charlie get that gun out and get back to work!

Burton’s transformation from devout preacher and husband to attendee of beatnik parties is well done although the relationship does always seem a bit out of kilter of what we know about the characters. The metaphor of the bird is heavy handed with Burton keen to fly away from the responsibilities of his job and life in general.

The Californian beach settings are great and the film has a sixties vibe of free love that is always clawing away at the stuck up morals of the church and its elders. The couple never really win over our sympathies with him being a hypocrite and her being a slut with an agenda. As the pieces come to rest you have to wonder if it was worth it but I guess that’s the point of the whole affair.

THE Tag Line : Bronson Gets Wood!  68%

No.118 : The Beaver (2011)

The Beaver at the IMDb

This is a strange film that, if it had been described to you, you’d have thought it to be some sort of wacky spoof. It is real and I can testify to that as I had 90 minutes in the company of Mel Gibson talking through a beaver hand puppet. Maybe it’ll have something to say about damaged people and our perceptions of others? Or will it show that Mel’s decline shows no sign of hitting bottom?

Mel plays Walter a toy company owner who has a touch of depression. He’s married to Jodie Foster (who also directs) and the marriage isn’t going too well. Mel has two sons ; one a teenager who hates him and another who is a pre-schooler. The teenager is logging the similarities between himself and his Dad whilst writing exam papers for fellow students. The pre-schooler isn’t connecting with Mel but a good bit of puppetry will sort that relationship out!

After two years of trying to make the depressed marriage work Jodie kicks Mel out on his ass. Mel visits a dumpster to lose some stuff but finds a hand puppet beaver instead, which he immediately installs on his arm. He talks to himself and others through the beaver in a dreadful cockney accent and tries to kill himself in a half hearted attempt involving his tie and a shower rail.

On hearing of the new beaver Jodie unbelievably lets Mel back into the house and soon the marriage starts to improve. At work, after giving out cards explaining the beaver off as a psychiatric device, Mel reenergises his workforce and soon their ‘beaver kit’ is the toy hit of the year.

Elsewhere, Mel’s rudderless son is making friends with the smartest girl in school who wants him to write her a speech for her graduation. They also explore their love for tagging and her feeling of loss for her dead brother - she’s got issues too, you see!

Soon Mel is no longer talking from the beaver and it develops his own voice. Jodie is unhappy with the rodent’s planned appearance at her anniversary dinner and it may be that power tools are the only way to separate man from cuddly toy. Will the various problem people find redemption? And will the stuffed toy take all the acting awards for this frankly weird film?

This was as strange a 90 minutes of Hollywood film that you can imagine. An A-list cast involve themselves with a cheap Muppet while playing it straight. Issues such as detachment and isolation are touched on but you never get away from the guy out of ‘Lethal Weapon’ talking to a glove puppet as an equal. The puppet is never animated and the whole thing is ground solidly in reality with all the laughs of the nervous and awkward nature.

I can only imagine the whole project looked like a worthy examination of mental health but it just came across as totally  mental. Gibson lacked his usual charm and looked lost throughout. Foster was better and her irritation with her husband seemed real - no doubt she channelled her feelings of being involved in this farce!

I’m all for actors taking a chance and trying something ‘out there’ but this was an uncomfortable and strange venture that will do nothing to aid the understanding of either mental health issues or the troubles faced by beaver puppets stuffed into dumpsters.

THE Tag Line - Even Madder Max!  33%

No.117 : The Unforgiven (1960)

The Unforgiven at the IMDb

 No, not the Clint Eastwood non definitive article effort, this is the 1960 John Huston directed western that stars Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn. It is a bit long at two hours but it has a bit to say and plenty of action, especially in the last half hour.

Burt plays a cattleman returning home prior to a big drive to Wichita. He’s brought home a piano that he won in a bet and his old Ma Lillian Gish is most impressed. His sister Audrey is also pleased, as are the cows and the minister. In what is a slow burning half hour they bash out a couple of tunes and break some horses in, scenes that would have been far better on the editor’s floor. Still it sets an idyllic scene that we know can’t last.

We learn that Audrey is a founding, with the story going that she was found in a settler's wagon after they were killed by the Indians. Not everyone is convinced however, especially an old stranger with a big sword who keeps popping up and looking ominous. Things come to a head when three Indians appear with a gift of horses and ask ‘How much for the woman’ in a scene later echoed in ‘The Blues Brothers’. The Indians are convinced that Audrey is a child stolen from them during a massacre and they want her back, even though she’s at least 30.

Burt, who may have more of a shine to his ‘sister’ that is healthy, spurns the Indians but soon the racist locals start to question the squaw in their ranks. The mysterious stranger is captured and tells what he thinks is the truth of Audrey’s origins before Lillian hangs him by chasing off the horse he’s sitting on while he's wearing a noose. With Audrey suffering the shortest engagement in history the locals leave Burt and his clan to take on the whole Indian nation on their own. Luckily they have more bullets than Patton and the Indians have been practicing falling off their horses. Will Audrey return to her roots or will Burt reveal his thinly hidden passion? Can the cowboys v. Indians saga be resolved once and for all or will the smashed piano fester resentment evermore?

After a slow start this film turned out to be an enjoyable and thought provoking effort that delivered with an action packed last half hour as the homestead is besieged by endless Indians. The main theme was one of identity and the trouble in store was rote large from the off when the family cows were grazing on the homestead roof - off the reservation you see!

Things start off well and the neighbours are nice until the trouble starts and then they disappear. Masks are dropped when Audrey’s fiancé gets filled with arrows after his first kiss. This lets rise all the bubbling resentments with one old woman totally racialist! Audrey does well but I wasn’t convinced she was a red Indian and she herself didn’t seem that bothered with a return to her roots on the cards one minute, with Burt’s brotherly and incestuous arms favoured next.

Burt did his usual stand up job of being softly spoken and decent but with a strong right hand to back it up. His motivations were suspect from the off as he beats up an Indian for touching his sister’s hair and we were sure it was more than brotherly love that saw him lose his herd and then burn down his house for his frankly rather skinny and annoying sister.

The Mexican locations were great and the cast list was filled out with some great character actors, especially the scene chewing tell tale, John Saxon, Audie Murphy, Doug McClure and even Dr No!

It’s certainly not as memorable or as brutal as Clint’s effort but it’s still a superior western that will reward those how stay about after the piano is put away.

THE Tag Line : Lillian Gish It Is Not  71%

No.116 : The Lifeguard (2013)

The Lifeguard at the IMDb

 Kristen Bell stars in the title role who, when we meet her is a journalist in New York. We know things aren’t going great as the film stock is washed out in blue tones. She reports a story of a man who kept a tiger in his apartment and it later died after trying to claw its way out. As a metaphor it is a bit blunt and soon Kristen has fled the pressures of the city and headed home to her parents in Connecticut.

We learn that she’s near 30 and although young for a mid-life crisis she and her parents both feel she has failed up to her early promise when she was top of her class. She hooks up with some old friends including a fey man with a beard who has yet to come out as being gay and another who is trying to get pregnant and live the conventional life she feels is predestined to her.

Bell gets a job at an apartment complex pool as the lifeguard and soon makes friends with a bunch of teenagers including the janitor’s hot teenage son. Her two groups of friends start to mix and smoke pot  and stay out late much to the annoyance of her parents who don’t really want her moving back in, especially as she’s brought the cat.

After a run in with some young kids at the pool and with the cops who are bullying her skater pals Bell starts to reassess her life and falls into bed with her teenage chum. This sets her at odds with her wannabe pregnant friend who can’t even get her husband to slap his dick across her face. As the affair becomes public and the gay friend gets bolder a tragedy tells everyone that it’s time to get on with their lives and stop sitting about smoking hash and listening to indie music.

This ‘slice of life’ effort wasn’t really worth the effort. The usually attractive Bell spends most of this film with a scowl on her face and her listless existence is more tiresome than thoughtful. The film tries to have a melancholy air with a slow dirge soundtrack and lots of ponderous scenes of kids hanging about or slow-mo scenes in the pool. I appreciate these are rudderless people looking for a meaning to their existence but they just come across as dull and needy.

Bell does OK holding the whole thing together but she’s not that likeable and her motivations appear totally selfish throughout. The running theme of being trapped and needing direction is life is hardly going to excite the audience and at no point did I feel invested in any of the characters. She may feel she is daring taking a part where she has an affair with a teenager but it was low key stuff and I liked when the boy’s Dad, when confronted with the horror, basically said ‘that’s my boy’!

The big turning point was a bit of a surprise but the character involved wasn’t one we had invested much in and although a catalyst for change it seemed unlikely given what had gone before. There were a couple of sex scenes but they were modestly played with the only nudity some poor bloke who got his shorts dropped.

The needy and demanding people shown in this film could easily be categorised as ‘first world problems’ with the availability of beer their most pressing concern. The general gloomy mood of the film is not one that would engage the viewer and when Bell makes her inevitable return to the big city we have to wonder if her trip was really worth the bother.

THE Tag Line : Lifeguard Needs Saving!   56%

No.115 : The Conqueror (1956)

The Conqueror at the IMDb

 Some people may say that John Wayne lacked range, but whether he’s a pirate captain a gun fighter or, in this case, Genghis Khan he does a convincing job - well as long as the character needs an American drawl and a portly actor in the role.

Wayne plays Temujin, a Mongol chief who one day becomes Genghis. He'd better get a move on as he’s already 50 odd when the film starts! We learn that Wayne became chief after his Dad was poisoned and he’s out for revenge. He chances upon a caravan of travellers and, after eyeing up the sexy lady they are transporting, decides to go back and claim her for his wife. The lovely, played by Susan Heyward, is reluctant to get jiggy with Wayne, with his thin moustache the most likely reason.

After basically raping her Wayne sets out on various missions of revenge. The local warlords are a bunch of camp men with my favourite being Wang Khan who has a terrible soothsayer at his side. Wayne agrees an alliance to overthrow the resident bad guys who turn out to be the family of the woman Wayne is raping - the swine! Wayne catches a couple of arrows and is captured with his ‘wife’ running off, slagging him as she goes.

Big John suffers five minutes of torture and is due to be put to death, but who is that coming to him in the night with a big knife? Oh good it’s the wife no doubt ready to claim her revenge. But wait! She totally loves John and helps him escape - female emancipation this is not!

The film rumbles on with various betrayals from the tribesmen including Wayne’s brother. Eventually a big battle looms - will Wayne fulfil his destiny and escape the claw and will his wife break the Stockholm Syndrome and escape?

This is a real laugh fest that totally deserves its 3.2/10 on IMDb. It was produced by Howard Hughes but he’d have been better off trying to sell his bottled pee than this guff. For a start Wayne is totally miscast. He wears a variety of ridiculous outfits while reading off some cringeworthy dialogue. He must have been told that foreign folk talk like Yoda and he therefore does every scene like he’s reading his lines off the back of his hand.

He is a total dick of a character who lacks any empathy or charisma. This is the guy who is meant to take over most of the world but on this form he’d be lucky to get Old Kent Road at Monopoly. The sets are poor too with ‘The Gobi Desert’ looking a lot like the same valley where he shot most of his westerns.

The film runs a long two hours and there are large sequences of  dances and sing-alongs. It may have been meant to give us an idea of Mongol culture but I’d be surprised if they had sequined bras back in the olden days. Susan Heyward does OK in a shamefully written role but she was looking the most of her 39 years at the time of filming and I doubt nations would battle over this fading beauty.

All in all there was enough to qualify this as a ‘so bad its good’ with well known stars such as Lee Van Cleef showing up and raiding the dressing up box with no visible shame.

THE Tag Line : Genghis Can’t    40%

No.114 : The Colony (2013)

The Colony at the IMDb

 If you thought ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ lacked some mutant cannibals then this could be this film for you.

It is the future and it’s very cold. “The snow started and then didn’t stop” says the ominous voiceover - not sure how that would work but only the tops of street lights are peeking through the snow and no one has had their milk delivered for ages. We learn that most people are dead apart from small colonies living underground.

They manage to grow plants from their seed bank and have some rabbits but things are deteriorating fast. The rabbits have stopped shagging and Bill Paxton is on security detail. A recent flu bug killed 20 of the survivors and sniffles are now a near capital offence. Kindly leader Laurence Fishbourne puts anyone with a runny nose into quarantine and if they don’t get better they can have a bullet or a long walk into the icy wastes. Mentalist Bill prefers a bullet only prescription.

The colony keep in touch with other sites but Colony 5 have gone offline. Laurence takes a few men to check things out and warns Bill not to shoot anyone. The arduous trek across the frozen wastes takes about five minutes and fortunately for the budget Colony 5’s base looks an awful lot like Laurence’s Colony 7. No one answers the door and our heroes sneak in to take a look. They find loads of dead bodies and predictably one survivor who has gone a bit loopy.

A dig about finds a handy stash of dynamite as well as a recording of a transmission that suggests a thaw may be on the way. Sadly their luck runs out as they find a charnel house of mutant cannibals in the kitchen who are scoffing the colony’s former residents. After losing a few men Laurence and the young good looking one escape but with the cannibals in hot pursuit. Will they make it home and will what awaits them be worse than what they have fled? Will the climate reboot and will our heroes' values hold against a big man with pointy teeth?

This was a decent enough effort if you can overlook the thin plot and thinner characters. There is the usual gubbins about climate change but if you take this film as a portentous warning about what the future holds you are probably the kind of person who gets nutritional advice from Michael Moore. Essentially the whole film can be summarised as ‘group disturbs nest of cannibals and then gets chased home by them’. Not so much a movie plot as a game of tag.

The film does try to commentate on the human condition with the dehumanised Bill a foreshadow of the even more brutal cannibals. Towards the end when the gloves are off even those who seemed ‘normal’ end up chopping heads with a salad slicer. The gore is low key with the butcher house scene the worst although even that was so broad as to negate its impact. Fair enough cannibals can be sinister but these were the full leg waving chompers sitting amongst fires and piles of dismembered bodies. Subtle it is not!

Despite a low budget, that involved a series of endless tunnels which looked like a tribute to ‘Dr Who’, it was fast paced enough to keep me interested and the loss of a star after an hour signalled either a brave director or that the last few bucks had run out.

At a trim 90 minutes the film didn’t outstay its welcome and despite their ridiculousness I quite enjoyed the OTT troupe of permanently hungry people eaters.

THE Tag Line - Needs Heating Up  64%

No.113 : The Hill (1965)

The Hill at the IMDb

Sean Connery made this 1965, black and white drama immediately after he finished ‘Goldfinger’ presumably to show that there was more to him than Martinis and one liners. Well it worked - he can do shouting too!

Connery is one of five men who arrive in a British  North African army penal camp during World War 2. The four others are privates convicted for petty crimes whereas Connery is an officer charged with disobeying orders.

The camp is run by a team of sadistic guards who glory in running their charges into the ground. Their favourite torture device is the titular hill which, although quite small, breaks all who are set up and down it. Connery as a seemingly cowardly officer gets singled out for special treatment and this doesn’t sit well with his cellmates who are roped in too. These include Sandy out of ‘The Wild Geese’ Roy Kinnear and a spirited black chap who gets all kinds of racial abuse that seems outrageous by today’s standards.

The men are passed fit by an ineffectual medical officer and put in the grim hands of the evil Sgt Stevens. He reports to the blinkered RSM Wilson who in turn reports to the oblivious commandant. The brutal drills soon cause the men to faint and despite Connery’s knowledge of the regulations they get no respite. Only slightly fey officer Ian Bannen offers some support but the bullying climate keeps him in check.

After one brutal drill on the hill one of the cellmates collapse and dies. Can the men find justice or will the metaphorical hill of threats and lies be too much for them to surmount?

Two hours of sweaty men shouting at each other may not be everyone’s cup of tea but this is an excellent film with a lot to say about discipline, the law and class. The injustices are plain to see but these are guilty men and there’s a war on. Where should our sympathies lie? Director Sidney Lumet answers this from the off with the guards onto a hiding as soon as Sean shows up with his book of rules. His character was well drawn with the truth of his imprisonment slowly drawn out of him.

When the man dies a near mutiny ensues but this is swiftly quelled with some selective punishment and the lure of some cheese. Sean isn’t so easily bought and gets a strong kicking for his troubles. Can he convince the weak medical officer and the simpering Bannen to stand up for what is just? To convince them we get a near half hour scene of the men yelling at each other as battle lines are drawn and alliances are forged and quickly recanted when the tide turns.

The cast is uniformly (!) excellent and the drama is well realised against a massive set with dozens of extras. It would work well as a theatre production and the director wisely chooses to use a lot of close ups and jerky camera movements to give an unsettling sense of isolation and disconnection.

There are some uncomfortable scenes especially when the black actor, Ossie Davis, has to endure abuse and spend much of the film in his oversized pants, but I’m sure what was portrayed was mild compared to the real life environment.

Overall this was a fast paced two hours with the focus on character and dialogue. Top notch acting and directing saved it from being a cheap melodrama and it’s certainly one that’ll live long in the memory.

THE Tag Line : Climb this Hill!   76%

No.112 : The Switch (1993)

The Switch at the IMDb

 Bill Lumbergh off ‘Office Space’  stars in this 1993 true life drama that has nothing to do with the spunk swapping we enjoyed back in number 95.

‘The Switch’ in this case is an on/off switch for a life support machine that our paralysed hero insists on having installed. Bill plays Larry McAfee who in the opening scene suffers a catastrophic motorcycle accident that leaves him paralysed below the neck. We witness his treatment which is intercut with a tampon advert’s of sport and bonding as Larry retreats into his memories. We also get to witness him going over the bars of his bike in glorious slo-mo.

We cut to a year later and Larry is mobile in a straw controlled wheelchair but his insurance cash is running out. His hapless parents find him an evil hospital in Texas where they aren’t very nice and give him his bed baths at night. These scene are well done with Larry’s POV giving us an insight of his helpless situation.

After 4 years he’s been bounced around various hospitals with his smart mouth and quick temper meaning his welcome never lasts long. He manages to engage a lawyer and proposes his patented ‘switch’ idea that will allow him to kill himself without anyone risking charges for helping him. His plight also gets the attention of a talk radio host who must be great as he has Beverly D’angelo as an assistant and wife.

Larry manages to get court approval for his switch but the publicity the case garners encourages the DJ to have Larry on the show and get him a straw powered phone. This new outlet for his thoughts helps Larry regain his will to live as do some quality days out in the park and some nice cleavage rich shaving with Beverly.

Despite these steps forward Larry is still keen on flicking the switch and the DJ agrees, despite Larry moving to a new state where his judgement doesn’t apply. After a strange night time car park handover the switch is obtained and installed. Will Larry make the three puffs that will stop his oxygen or is it just control over his own life he needs?

It’s the second one, and soon in an assisted living facility Larry is making friends and learning some new software that may allow him to get back to work. The other residents resent Larry’s switch that they think it makes it too convenient for able bodied folk to see their disabled friends switch themselves off. But soon his spirit and refocused energy wins them over. Can Larry make a life for himself and will the switch ever be used?

This was a pretty much by the numbers ‘triumph over adversity’ bio-pic with lots of setbacks followed by life affirming achievement. It was enjoyable however with a great and recognisable cast. Gary Cole is excellent as the lead although sometimes he moves a bit more than is supposedly possible when he gets anxious. There is a lot of sentimentality and it is clearly packaged as a tear jerker for the Lifetime Network.

They did well to paint Larry as a bit of a dick but still likeable throughout. The uplifting musical cues every time a worthy speech was uttered did get a bit grating but give the guy a break, he’s had a tough time!

THE Tag Line - You Won’t Switch Off Either! 65%