-
Posted by
zacharythax June 11, 2009 -
1,145 views
D/P/A: Lindsay Anderson, S: David Sherwin, P/A: Michael Medwin, M: Alan Price
If you've seen Clockwork Orange enough to get the subtle touches of humor all the way through it then you'll probably enjoy this. I've read a lot of reviews but none that convinced me the reviewer actually saw the movie. Malcolm McDowell looks and acts the same as he did in his previous film in this long (about 3 hours) story of Mike (Mick) who starts as a coffee salesman and inherits the territory of a veteran salesman who disappeared. He bangs an older woman teaching his training class and then hits the road. He stays in a rooming house , meets the mayor, goes to a party where, after a black and white porn movie with Santa Claus and a topless woman we get live sex show where the crowd demands a "chocolate sandwich" which is a threesome on stage involving a black guy and two white women.
He boinks the landlady and a fellow roomer gives him a gold suit. He gets a call to head up to Scotland to take over the territory there, gets lost and ends up outside the gates of some military facility. He gets detained, tortured and forced to sign a confession. They ask him a bunch of surreal questions until the alarm sounds and the whole place blows up. He escapes to find his car on fire, then hitches a ride that leads him to an experimental hospital where you sell your organs for medical research.
He finds a guy in bed, suffering, asks,"How much are they paying you?" and then removes the sheet to reveal that the guy's body has been replaced by the body of a sheep(!) In a panic, he rides his bike out into the street and almost gets run over by a van containing the Alan Price combo. They go, "Are you suing us or are we suing you?" and pick him up. He discovers young Helen Mirren under a fur coat. She makes him take off all his clothes and makes out with him. I gotta say, though Helen Mirren looks better now than she did when she was younger.
He finds out that she's the daughter of a super-billionaire, completely ruthless and evil. He gets a meeting with him saying, 'You're daughter is in trouble." Except during the meeting two of his underlings fall out a window (a very long fall done gracefully, with stuntmen) He ends up as the Mr. Big's personal assistant. He's so rich he not only has a car phone but two (2) (!) They secretly meet with some third world dictator types include one guy who looks like Mommar Kadahfi in really bad blackface. They want him to build a resort in their country but he's nervous about his investment being ruined by political instability. The general (with a German ? accent) describes how they need a chemical warfare agent called "honey" to get the job done. We're then treated to a gruesome slide show of corroded flesh victims of the stuff.
Mike ends up as the fall guy for the bigwig's illegal activities and is sentenced to prison for 5 years. The judge then goes to his chambers, takes off his robes under which he's wearing a little red speedo and gets whipped by a matron of the court, in his powdered wig (!)
When he gets out of the joint, he's read a lot of philosophy books and tries to become a super do-gooder, but it all backfires. He ends up alone, broke and on the street until a sandwich board dude hands him a slip of paper that says, "Be a star." He goes to a casting call where Helen Mirren in glasses takes his name and he gets picked by the director. The director tells him to smile. Mike asks "Why, what's there to smile about?" Finally the director smacks him with a book and he starts to crack that ghost of a smile just like little Alec. End of movie.
