Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This little-known movie (with some famous people in its cast) holds few surprises: its main plot "secret" is given away so early that you wonder why the script keeps treating it as a secret (Saul Rubinek's character has a death mark on his forehead from his very first scene!). And Robert Mitchum is well-cast, but looks bored! The premise in interesting, but it is not used to its full potential. Still, there is at least one smart escape by Lee Majors, the film does have a sense of humor, and it is never less than watchable. Good luck finding a decent print though - mine was from Mill Creek and looked like a transfer from a damaged VHS tape, plus it bleeped out SOME of the four-letter words! **1/2 out of 4.

It's something along the lines of "The Parallax View" but much more light hearted. The staff of a large advertising agency in the well-known American city of Montreal, Canada, do a good deal of walking around in a colossal tall glass tower of a building, amid so many such towers. And why not? The cubicles and offices are heated. Outside, they have to cope with the deep freeze of a northern winter. I always wondered how the Iroquois managed to survive.Anyway, a trimly bearded Lee Majors and his sidekick, Saul Rubinek, are trying to adjust to the new ownership of the agency, headed now by the millionaire Robert Mitchum. He wears a dark, three-piece business suit and his hair is finely coiffed down to the last millimeter, an appealing curl drops negligently across his forehead. Okay. Canadians are known to dress more carefully than Americans, but with Mitchum, I just don't know.The plot has the new owners planting subliminal ads in their television commercial for Chocolate Planet, a new kind of cocoa. And it works too, however implausible that seems. They manage to get a Nazi elected senator from Arizona, and Mitchum plans to embed these messages in ads designed for children's products too, capturing the minds of the next generation and, ultimately, putting the right kind of man into the White House -- one that will provide the desperately needed "leadership" that Mitchum describes.There are a couple of murders along the way, as Majors and his girl friend, Valerie Perrine, try to figure out what's up and steal the evidence. Rubinek, for instance, winds up frozen in a grotesque position inside a refrigerator. But nobody grieves much. The pace is too fast and the wisecracks can't wait. Some of the wisecracks are pretty enjoyable. A security guard is mugged and gets a syringe full of some sort of barbiturate that knocks him out. He protests to the police: "They stuck a needle in my ass! What was I supposed to do?" The detective replies: "Turn the other cheek." I must have seen this years ago because I remembered one scene. Near the beginning, Rubinek rushes into Majors' office, a nervous wreck, and begins explaining that he's just discovered that something secret is taking place within the ad agency. Majors believes none of it and sits behind his desk, resigned and bored. During his rant, Rubinek remarks that Majors' office plant has mealy bugs. Majors leaps to his feet in alarm and says, "MEALY bugs! What are mealy bugs?" It has the production values of a TV movie, several reasonably executed action scenes that lack logic, and a villain who dresses in a black leather coat and black fedora, like some kind of Gestapo. It's a good part for Lee Majors because little is demanded of him except that he be likable, and Mitchum puts little effort into a stock part. It's no more than diverting, and the script has its occasional bright spot.

I was actually being quite generous with the stars on this one. The quality of this video was really about 2 stars, but the original author and actors deserved better than that.Spoilers! So don't read further unless you want to know what the movie was about.A much better movie with a similar theme would be "Looker" with Susan Dey. Both movies are about subliminal messages in TV advertising with murders and subterfuge.They had a good idea with this story. I'm sure the original author was mortified when he saw what was done with his story. Even with Mitchum and Majors, this director, producer and film crew managed to destroy this movie. It could have been quite good but I was in shocked disbelief from the moment the movie started until the very end.I strongly suspect that Mitchum and Majors had no idea how bad this movie was going to turn out until after it was processed. I'm sure they were both horrified with the results. It wasn't their fault. It might have been a good movie with a completely different film crew and film executives.Bad sound; bad script & screen writing; bad directing; bad lighting; bad camera work; bad video quality; bad transfer; bad dialogue...The screen writing was a disaster. When it started out with that "no sweat" commercial in demonic attire... I actually grabbed the DVD box because I thought it was some kind of drag p0rn0 based on the opening scene. I somehow pictured the entire theater emptying out with this scene. There was no excuse for the way this script was written and laid out.I'm not sure they used a script for this movie. I think they just decided on a scene the night before and handed out the dialogue just before each shot. I really felt sorry for the actors. They really did their best. From the sound, there was obviously no "voice over" to clean up the sound of the dialogue, what little there was of it.Bad directing of the worst kind. I really mean this quite literally when I say a high school kid could have done a better job with a hand held camera in their garage. A 12 year old could have done better... and I'm not sure where the producer was hiding out while all of this was taking place.The sound quality was so terrible and distorted, we could have used a cassette recorder in a purse and done a better job with the sound. It was painful just to attempt to listen to this butchered, difficult to understand sound track. It was muffled, distorted and constantly fluctuating.The video and lighting were terrible. It was dark. The quality was worse than a 1950's TV show. There was no semblance of professional lighting. I mean this quite literally. I'm not being unkind. The cameras looked like old hand-held 1960's TV cameras which required extremely bright, hot lights to obtain a decent image.When there was something to see... such as the suicide in the refrigerator... the director did not have the camera stay on it long enough for you to absorb what you were seeing. But the ridiculous notion that someone would have killed himself by clearing out the refrigerator, cramming inside, then leaving a note was dumb enough. But the added disbelief that the police detectives didn't see anything suspicious about the situation was simply too much to bear.Then we had the same "suicide" victim leave a reel to reel recording of about 6 scenes of the movie... really sounded more like something we would expect to hear from a director on planning out scenes to be filmed and then ran out of money. So, instead of filming the scenes, they had this character record the details of what was going on at the Ad Agency as if he had tracked down the entire plot of the movie. We also could not understand half of what he was saying due to the bad soundtrack. A cheap way to do half of the movie without filming it.As for the graphics on the subliminal messages in the commercials, the core plot of the movie, it was so childish, nightmarish and filled with ridiculous roars and distorted sound… not to mention "crayon style animations" (no kidding), I could not believe my eyes.If you watch the movie "Looker" you will see a much better rendition of subliminal messaging. "Agency" had the right idea... but did not have a film or production crew who could do this movie in a professional manner.I did appreciate the story the original author was trying to tell. And I did enjoy the efforts of the actors. I watched the movie for their sake... and I felt really bad for how they must have felt when they saw the finished product. I honestly don't know how this movie was ever printed and distributed for public consumption.If you have a choice... watch "Looker" instead. You will enjoy that movie. It was well done and had a similar theme with much better special effects. However, if you are intent on watching this movie, "Agency" then I would recommend having a couple drinks to wash it down. It is watchable if you can tolerate the terrible soundtrack and bad lighting.I would like to extend my apologies to the actors, their families and the original author of this story. If the movie had been handled by a different film company, crew, director & producer... and a better DVD transfer company... I think it could have been a good movie. It could certainly be remade into a very enjoyable movie but that would never make up for the duress the actors and the writer must have endured at the hands of this director and production company when they saw the final product.

Interesting casting, including Ms. Tessmacher from Superman. Mitchum is good as the evil head of an ad agency. Very cheesy 70s elements abound - did people dress like that? Anyway, no mention is made of where this is taking place, but clearly it's Montreal and very cold. But while there are US flags all over the place, Lee Majors' colleague calls Mitchum an American with an unflattering adjective. I'm sure the stars loved the frigid temps! One could imagine this movie being remade, perhaps even in the context of the recent election (hint hint). Since Hollywood has adopted recycling long ago, I wouldn't be surprised to see this remade. Also, the DVD had probably the worst audio I've heard on a DVD. It was just that bad. Some bad editing too, missing frames, gives the impression of an early Youtube video. It's neat to see Lee Majors on screen again, it's been a while and he was trying to rebuild his career at this point, between Million Dollar Man and Fall Guy. Can't go wrong with a little conspiracy theory concept either. I guess it would be a good cover for the CIA to takeover a Canadian ad agency to make ads for the US market. While the rented jet says US AIR Force (with probably sticky letters) I doubt the CIA uses USAF biz jets.Anyway, maybe the book it's based on is better, but there was nothing better on TV so at least it was new to me.