WRONG IS RIGHT (1982)

If you thought slapstick satire of modern world politics (focus MidEast Terrorism) climaxing with the discovery of timed nuclear bombs attached to a flagpole atop NYC’s World Trade Center would have attracted notice as unnerving forecast of the real 9/11 two decades later, think again.  The film, and frankly writer/director Richard Brooks, long gone from being part of the conversation.  Rightfully so in spite of the tempting cast: Headline tv reporter Sean Connery; President George Grizzard; interpreter Katharine Ross, political rival Leslie Nielsen; hardline general Robert Conrad; C.I.A. man John Saxon; Arab interloper Henry Silva; White House Aides G.D. Spradlin & Dean Stockwell; Veep Rosalind Cash; Illegal arms seller Hardy Krüger and so on.  The gist of the thing is that writer Brooks thinks he’s tearing apart modern news & newsroom hypocrisy like Paddy Chayefsky in NETWORK/’76, while director Brooks thinks he’s on to the physical comedy style of Blake Edwards in, say, S.O.B./’81.*  Alas, Brooks hasn’t a comic synapse in his noggin, more grumpy Granddad kidding-on-the-square about the state of the world.  Purposefully politically incorrect, circa 1982 (which is saying something!), but with neither aptitude nor insight on the subject and certainly none of the timing to land his extremely sour jokes.  Then giving Connery a cri de coeur speech on how the news is just an excuse to sell products & garner ratings.  A diatribe lifted straight out of Tom Stoppard’s NIGHT AND DAY on B’way with Maggie Smith in 1979.  Nothing else Brooks does in here quite as shameless.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  *While Blake Edwards’ target was The Movies rather than The World, you can see what Brooks must have been aiming for watching Edwards take on Hollywood in S.O.B.  Not a bad idea in theory.  Edwards’ later films got stuck in a personal loop of Mid-Life crises.  Maybe a dose of overactive Chayefsky venom would have been just the ticket to jolt him out of his psychological funk.  And a dose of slapstick good for Chayefsky, too.  (See THE HOSPITAL/’71)    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/02/sob-1981.html 

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: As our posters show, Columbia Pictures (above) hadn’t a clue on how to sell this thing.  While Euro-distributors (on your left) thought: Sean Connery?  Pretend it’s James Bond.