At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Michael Travis (Malcolm McDowell) is a coffee salesman trainee who is put into a prominent position after the previous salesman in the Northeast runs off. He finds a corrupt system in decline. He gets lost driving in the North. He runs across a military installation and gets tortured for a confession. He escapes when fire breaks out. Then he gets involved with medical experiments by Dr. Millar. He escapes and lives with Patricia (Helen Mirren) in London. This is dated. The surrealism is interesting for the first half hour. I get the general rant against the world. However the movie loses tension as each weird thing seems to randomly occur. I lose interest in the narrative. It's a fascinating bit of 70's British film. They are obviously throwing the traditional playbook out the window and trying something different. In addition to McDowell, it's fascinating to see Helen Mirren in her 20s.

In 1968's "If...", Lindsay Anderson focused on the brutality of the UK's boarding school system. He followed that up with "O Lucky Man!", in which Malcolm McDowell's character Mick Travis enters the labor force. Told that he would be a big success in the corporate world, Travis gets ripped off every step of the way. I should remind you that this movie is a comedy, falling somewhere between slapstick and black comedy.A trick that the movie uses is casting every person in multiple roles. This trick reminded me of Christian Marquand's "Candy". But some of the most impressive scenes are the musical interludes with Alan Price. And the rest of the cast? Aside from the man known as Alex the Droog, we have Ralph Richardson, Helen Mirren, Philip Stone (Alex's father in "A Clockwork Orange" and Grady in "The Shining"), Rachel Roberts (the headmistress in "Picnic at Hanging Rock"), Warren Clarke (Dim in "A Clockwork Orange"), Vivian Pickles (Harold's mother in "Harold & Maude"), Brian Glover (the hostile tavern patron in "An American Werewolf in London") and Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett in the "Star Wars" movies*).But the important thing is that the movie indicts the exploitation inherent in the corporate world. A similar movie that I recommend is "The Magic Christian", starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. You're sure to love it, not least because of the great soundtrack.*This is the second time that Malcolm McDowell appeared alongside a "Star Wars" cast member. David Prowse (Darth Vader) appeared as Mr. Alexander's caretaker in "A Clockwork Orange".

The central idea of Lindsay Anderson's bizarre and sometimes frustrating political satire seems to be that ideals inevitably come to grief when they fall into contact with humans and human society, which are invariably corrupt, petty, stupid, selfish and cruel. This is a pretty dark message for a comedy, even one as black as this, but it helps that the main character manages to cling to his ideals for as long as he does. The story comes from McDowell's own experiences selling coffee in the 'territories' (ie. the parts of England that aren't London), but the plot runs fairly close to that of Waugh's Decline and Fall, as we follow the fortunes of a naif through the blood thirsty world of capitalism and eventually into prison and beyond. Along the way we encounter every class and type of Britisher, every UK institution and we watch as idealism crumbles in the face of pragmatism and the failings of human character. Ex-Animals keyboardist Alan Price provides often clever, sometimes intrusive or annoying sung commentary on the action and on England herself, which makes for a somewhat uneasy mix, but then the whole film is like that. Anderson pulled out all of the stops and dares the audience to put up with the results. Hollywood won't do this now, but directors in the early 70s and especially those working outside the big studios could get away with it. At almost three hours length, and with a picaresque story that is never about just one thing for more than twenty minutes, this movie is a bit of challenge to sit through.Make the effort. Movies like this don't get made anymore and we're oh such lucky men to have this one.

So, you get tortured because you pop in on a secret nuclear facility? Welcome to waterboarding: it's just friendly persuasion. So you witness an accident involving 2 deaths and the cops threaten to charge you with manslaughter if you don't beat it (there is a lot of merchandise on the truck that they can take if you're not involved).The constable and the chief justice of a town are some of the participants in the after-hours sex club, where they have a chocolate sandwich on the stage. At least there was no minister there and Anderson was too naive and innocent to represent the pedophilic nature of modern day priests, denied the normal sexual outlets. For a man who despised the corruption of power, he did an outstanding job showing it ...all depicted as a very natural thing. The maid who delivers the tea, just as naturally unlocks Malcolm from the chair to which he is held prisoner.Such a great movie. Tonight I go back and see the commentary which certainly (by Malcolm) makes this a lot more sensible. Seeing Helen Mirren, the great lady of the English stage, acting as a young girl in many different parts gave you a real idea of the heights that she would come up to..