recommended

One of the best films i have seen

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Wrong is Right was handicapped by indifferent marketing; it had a good cast, decent script, good production values. It also came out just after the trough of the Carter administration malaise... and during the Iranian hostage crisis, when people did not want to see MORE terrorists than they already knew existed.But Wrong is Right is more enjoyable now, when its plot line is comparatively tame compared to the events of the last twelve years. Post-9/11 viewers can see how prophetic Wrong is Right is of how the War on Terror would play out, with both major US political parties signing on for the dysfunctional response to terror attacks on the United States we eventually saw in 2001.Wrong is Right's saving grace is the taut interweaving of savage satire and action scenes that characterized its famous predecessor "Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Relax and Love the Bomb." It drags a little in parts, but not much, and some of the humor is hackneyed, but again, not enough to hurt the production. The cast of Wrong is Right is "name" actors who came to work, no one phoning in his or her performance. And those performances are very good for a low-budget Hollywood film - they maintain a dark comedic pace as close to that of Dr. Strangelove as possible without Terry Southern in his salad days writing and Peter Sellers doing his stellar best to delight and bemuse.Wrong is Right could have been made better; it's still one of those wicked satires which you ought to see when you're in the mood for a movie that says "I told you so." Something I'm very grateful "Dr. Strangelove" hasn't been able to say. Yet.

This early 80s oddity has Sean Connery miscast as Patrick Hale, a TV anchorman cum roving reporter who heads out to trouble spots with this TV camera and little else apparently. I can't really buy Connery in a role that George Clooney would be a shoe-in for today, it belongs more to a Cary Grant than Clark Gable type, Connery isn't smooth enough and doesn't convey the moral ambivalence of a media type. It doesn't fit.My, it's dated. Tootling American soundtrack over long shots of US skyscrapers make it like something out of trash films of the 70s like The Bitch. They don't make 'em like that any more, thank goodness. It also has a truly rubbish opening 15 minutes, where you can't tell it it's meant to be funny or dramatic or not.What redeems it a fair bit is how topical the satire is, as other reviewers have mentioned. Religious fundamentalism in the White House, tensions between the US and the Middle East, supposed weapons of mass destruction, the role of the media in escalating a crisis, plausible deniablity and suicide bombings on American soil all make this fairly relevant and amazingly prophetic. Leslie Nielsen pops up, too.It has its Bondian moments, too, with Connery narrating to the President the consequences of a nuclear bomb dropped in New York in a way that evokes a horror totally absent from his Bond thriller a year later, Never Say Never Again. It is a bit of a shame to see Connery give a finely nuanced performance, with all the vital anger and suspicion that put his Bond a notch above the others imo, in a film like this rather than the actual Bond film he returned for. At times you can really see him as the same guy who was in Diamonds Are Forever - he even has the clear diction he had back then, rather than the rather distracting, distinctive lishp he has from Never Say Never Again onwards.Worth a look for movie buffs, but it's scrappy looking and takes a scattershot approach to its satire. It gets better as it goes on.

It's incredible that this movie was made in 1982. The writer must have had a crystal ball. And that last part about the suitcases with atomic devices and how their existence is used to justify an US attack on a certain country ... Though in this case they did have the bomb but had decided not to use it yet. But the CIA puts dummy suitcases on top of a building in New York (was it the World Trade Center ? I can't recall). Anyway, this film should be shown in US public schools. It really addresses all the subjects we are dealing with today, and it's amazing how they could get it so right. Abroad I think people have a more cynical point of view about American intervention in other countries so they wouldn't find it so educational.

Although this film is rather coarsely made by todays standards, the subject matter still makes it eminently watchable. It is a black comedy set in the time of much turmoil in the world about oil and its power over people in tandem with the idea that news these days leans toward its being a form of entertainment. The satire is biting and has all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It is a very "tongue in cheek" film with a "no holds barred" comedic bent. More of a "slash and burn" type of film making. Sean Connery is Patrick Hale a roving international news reporter, think Christiane Amanpour with a sex change operation. The movie has all of characters which might come out of todays news headlines. There is a funny little joke near the end that Connery tells on himself-not to be missed.