Customer Reviews

Disclosure [VHS]

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

For those of you who have not seen disclosure you are missing quite a bit. It is the story of a business man(Michael Douglas) who's ex girlfriend(Demi Moore) comes to work at his office. In the coarse of events she become his boss and tries to further the relationship. One night in his office she tries to seduce him, even as far as having oral sex with him. After a little foreplay he turns her down and goes home to his wife. Well the next day he is charged with sexual harassment. Douglas proceeds to counter the suit. The movie shows the double standards between men and women concerning sexual assult. The audience watched as a once well thought of man becomes a outcast and a devious woman gets placed on a pedistal. What really makes this moving worth watching is the knowledge that the higher the pedistal the longer the fall. When Demi Moore's character falls, she falls hard. It's an excellant movie with a lot of surprises and a sweet kind of justice.

When most people watch movies that have been made from books, they usually come away from the movie thinking, "The book is better."

My own response to that comment might be, "They're pretty equal in quality." With the exception of a few name changes ("Twinkle Drive" in the book becomes "Arcomax" in the movie; from "Louise Fernandez" to "Katherine Alvarez"), the movie follows the plot of the book pretty closely. It's actually one of the first modern movies I've seen that doesn't stray that far from the book.

The premise of the movie is an intriguing one to me. High profile cases, such as the confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas and the testimony given by Anita Hill, have increased people's awareness of sexual harassment exponentially. Based upon our personal perceptions and "expectations" of the people around us, we "expect" men to be more sexually aggressive than women and therefore more likely to engage in sexual harassment or rape. But what can happen if a man is harassed by a woman? Watch "Disclosure" and find out.

Disclosure is basically a movie about sexual harassment.
For once, it's the male who's being harassed.
Yes people, it does happen in real life.
It makes the story more compelling than if it had been the usual "damsel in distress" kind of movie.
Not that I'm trying to lessen the impact of sexual harassment against either gender.
This kind of behavior is inexcusable for anyone.
Disclosure will make you think, and that's good considering not many movies require you to do anything but stare blankly at the screen.
The FX are really good for a thriller and the acting is superb.
It's fast paced, well written and has a mind blowing ending.
I recommend this for people who are looking for an intelligent thriller.

I caught this movie on TV a couple of years ago, and got wrapped up in it. I haven't read the book (I prefer non-fiction reading), so I can't compare this movie to the book. I thought this was an intelligent, but entertaining movie. It has a good ending - the bad guy (or girl) gets what is coming to them. There were only a few times I found scenes ridiculously implausible - like when Douglas's character is listening to Meredith and another worker scheme while she walks on a stairmaster, and they never notice him. Give me a break. I bet the good folks in Austin were irked when Michael Douglas's character turned up his nose at the possibility of being transferred to Austin.

Dennis Miller has a small role, but plays it effectively. Demi Moore is so beautiful, and plays a tough woman very convincingly. Michael Douglas's character was done so dirty in this movie, I was rooting for him all the way to the end. And thank goodness for "A Friend."

I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes movies with more depth than just car crashes and explosions.

I'm not going to rehash the plot or what others have said about this film. I felt compelled to write this review to point out a glaring omission in all the other reviews of this movie I have read. That omission is the fact that Tom Sander's (Michael Douglas') lawyer proved during the mediation hearings that Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore) had planned the "seduction" of Tom THREE AND A HALF WEEKS earlier by proving that her secretary had been sent out then to buy a bottle of Tom's favorite wine, a wine which was not available anywhere within a 500 mile radius of the city (a bottle which she had dishonestly claimed earlier in the hearing that her secretary had bought at the non-existent "corner liquor store" that evening). Think about that. This wasn't just a movie about reverse sexual harassment, although that certainly was one of the main plot elements. She was out to shaft him from the very beginning, long beforehand. When you watch this flick (or rewatch it) pay extra attention to her advance planning and the fact that her harassment charge was just one shot in a war to destroy Tom Sanders. There's more to the plot here than what appears at first glance!

Narrow minded people have a tendancy to think that ONLY men sexually harass women. However, realists know that is not so. This movie shows us a woman who rose to power (Demi Moore) & sexually harrasses Michael Douglas (her employee) AND by proving him incompetent in the manufacturing sector to get him off the payroll for spurning her years ago.

I enjoyed this faithful adaptation of the Michael Crichton book, and it was nearly better than the book. Michael Douglas plays computer exec Tom Sanders, the leader of the Digicom's Advanced Products Group, who expects to be promoted to Vice President. But Sanders' ex-lover, Meredith Johnson, gets promoted instead. She sexually harasses him on the first day as boss, and Sanders wants to take action. He wants to sue the company. Demi Moore plays Johnson. She does well at the role, although she is not who I thought of when I read the book. Donald Sutherland is Garvin, the CEO who supports Meredith fully. The acting is excellent, and I thought that it was a good adaptation, better than most I have seen. Why is it good? It stays very faithful to the book, and cuts out a couple of subplots from the book that I was not depressed to see go, such as Sanders' old mentor. It also removed some details I thought should have stayed in, but this happens in nearly every adaptation. If you liked the book you will like the movie too.

Demi, hot as a pistol, gets promoted over Michael, whom she used to sleep with before he got married. She wants him back in her body, and becomes demanding about it. He spurns her after a brief slip into immorality, and then she sets out to get him fired. The rest of the movie tangles up corporate cowardice with executive power plays. Michael has a mystery helper who communicates only by e-mail, and eventually he figures out a way to nail Demi but good (not a sexual nailing!) In the end, his career survives but he gets a big disappointment, and Demi's career seems trashed, although we and she know that she will soon sleep her way to the top in some other tech company. The computer and phone technology shown in this 15-year-old suspense tale is laughable now, which is amazing. When I see a movie made in the 1940's, for instance, the old-fashioned cars and telephones really do not bother me at all, but you'll be surprised at how absurd the computers and phones seem in this film now.

The book 'Disclosure' by Michael Crichton was an amazing book full of suspense and hi-tech excitement. Intertwining the newest computer abilities (I love the way a big 'E' jumps out when the main character get an e-mail LOL) and taking the subject of sexual harrasment and going the opposite direction, this had movie written all over it. The resulting product by Barry Levinson is good but not great, more like 3 1/2 stars out of 5 if I had the option. I enjoyed it (albeit the movie is a bit dated at this point in time), but it probably could have been a little better, the cheesy score at times doesn't help the movie in the long run. Good chemistry by Douglas (man does he ever get to screw around with the cutest women) and Moore, this is a good film to sit back and take in, even though it is slow at times.

**** RECOMMENDED

Demi & Douglas had great chemistry in this movie. They fight for control in a corporate computer technical world. Enough suspense and great acting to keep you watching.