Customer Reviews

Wrong Is Right

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A buried treasure, Wrong Is Right - as so many others have commented - is one of the rare pieces of fiction that predates the facts. Kudos to Richard Brooks for accurately predicting modern day media and international politics from the vantage point of 1981.
The movie is criticized for its apparent uneveness - swaying back and forth between thrilling drama and outright humor. As it stands, the screenplay is pure political satire. Some can stomach it, others can't. I maintain that it's a great film but, released in 1982, no one could comprehend its subject matter of a near future with society in chaos. Nevertheless, Wrong Is Right is a fascinating motion picture that deserves a second look. Beyond the seemingly dated facade of 1982 is a timeless tale of sinister world leaders and terrorists, an intrepid newsman, and the neverending quest to spin the truth.

Get your scorecard out so you can try and keep track of who is the evil person and who is not. This is a black comedy and really does get too close to the truth about how things are probably done in the halls of Washington and other locales.

Sean Connery plays to reporter who is going to get to the bottom of a story - no matter what. There is a good support cast who draws the viewer into the story, and the movie flows from one twist and betrayal to the next, right up to the end - where the ultimate twist is waiting.

The comparison to "Wag The Dog" is understandable, but one must remember that this movie came out years before "Dog."

I remember my friends and I seeing this in the theater when it was originally released. We were Connery fans sorely disappointed with a satire depicting such insanely implausible ideas as "suicide bombers" killing themselves and innocent bystanders to make the news and advance their cause. All this against a backdrop of a story about a terrorist Middle East nation getting its hands on some nukes. The movie ended, we didn't know the good guy from bad, and when you go to a Sean Connery movie having only known him as the original Bond, James Bond, not being able to tell the good guy from bad is a little more than disconcerting.

There is where my opinion of this movie sat in the back of my mind these twenty years. Now, anyone who had seen this movie then and watching the news today can't help but wonder if someone somewhere hadn't picked up some very ominous notions from watching this movie--it's a little more than eerie. For a satire there are fewer laughs now than when the ideas here were far removed from the reality of 1982.

I'd like, for a while anyway, if life imitated art a little less closely than this.

Connery stars as a globetrotting reporter in this film which predates both CNN and "Wag the Dog". Viewers will note the similarities between the fabricated war against the Middle Eastern despot here, and the fictional conflict against Albania in Wag the Dog. Both films are uncomfortably close to the truth, especially in light of the new bombing of Iraq.

Iamgine in 1983 someone making a movie set in a not too distant future where violence has become a national pastime. (XFL,WWF, Real TV?)

A world famous international war correspondent (Connery)
becomes swept up in the CIA's search for Iranian nuclear weapons in the US...

For a movie that has a ton of stars, including Sean Connery,
its odd that no one has ever heard of "Wrong Is Right".

Released just before the huge advent of home VCRs this would have fared much better with today's headlines as a background. A black comedy in 1983, in retrospect it poses some fascinating questions about todays society & how eerily accurate its humorous predictions turned out to be.

Its a good beer & popcorn movie, especially if you like political humor.

Back in 1983, I knew this movie had to be good, because my mother lobbied so hard to keep my father from taking me to it. She was afraid that it would be cynical, subversive, and morally reprehensible. He took me, anyway, and she was blessedly right. Naturally, I loved it. WRONG IS RIGHT was truly a film out-of-time. It feels either astonishingly dated (it makes a good double feature with DR. STRANGELOVE, or THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST) or disturbingly prophetic (WAG THE DOG's team and Michael Moore could have used it as a text book). But, in the Eighties, you just didn't seem 'em like this. I'm not sure if it's a really great film -- many of the jokes misfire, and many of the plot elements appear more winningly in other works. Still, its singularly smarmy energy and unrepentantly bleak view of society, politics, and the media are outstanding virtues, sure to warm the heart of any curmudgeon. In the wake of 9/11 and the war on Iraq, much of the film is utterly chilling. It has become really hard to watch, and I mean that as a high compliment. You'll also be treated to a Who's Who of stock, B-level superstars: Robert Conrad; GD Spradlin; John Saxon; Katharine Ross; Leslie Nielson; Henry Silva; Rosalind Cash: Robert Webber; George Grizzard; Dean Stockwell; and even a cameo by Jennifer Jason Leigh!

A critical and commercial failure, "Wrong Is Right" (1982) was simply ahead of its time. Writer-director Richard Brooks' fast-moving, globe-trotting media satire has an eerie resonance when viewed today. Sean Connery delivers one of his most underrated performances as the Cronkite-inspired TV journalist, with George Grizzard's "Bush-league" President Lockwood a standout among the supporting players. Watch for the ending in which Connery tosses off his toupee!

I have been looking for this movie for years. Thank you for the timely shipping. A great Buy!

Sean Connery was on top form in Richard Brooks' undervalued Wrong is Right (released outside the US as The Man With the Deadly Lens in a bizarre attempt to convince international audiences it was Connery's then impending comeback as James Bond!), a colossal box-office disaster in 1982 that suddenly seems relevant all over again as Connery's superstar TV reporter finds himself mixed up in various Middle East schemes involving two stolen nuclear bombs, terrorists, the CIA, an election campaign and chequebook journalism. Very much in the vein of The President's Analyst, albeit far less psychedelic, it's filled with great swipes at political double speak ("You deny it?" "Of course not: to deny it would be to admit that there was something to deny.") and the politics of celebrity (and vice versa) and holds up remarkably well.

Sadly no extras but a decent 1.85:1 widescreen transfer.

From the standpoint of film making this is a confused movie and is a very disappointing outing for the "great late director Richard Brooks". It's seems almost as if Brooks intentionaly sabotaged his own film. To this day I can not account the editing and disjointedness. I can only dream about what it could have been.

On the other hand I have "loved" this film for years. In many ways it is like a puzzle that you just can't get the last couple of pieces to fit correctly. In segments the film and many of the performances are outstanding as "Black Comedy" each in their own right. Somehow despite the muddle of the film, it still has a powerful impact!

Than there is Prophetic nature of the materail! In the early 1980's "no one" would ever have taken many of the events depicted seriously. Yet 20 years later here we are. Every American needs see this film!

Note:
Wrong Is Right is based on a Charles McCarry's 1979 novel "The Better Angels" about an Arab oil prince, who launches terrorist war againist the west. The real question is why isn't this book in print?