Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

cmoyton This is a fantastic 1970's thriller set in England staring James Coburn in one of his best roles as Robert Elliot, an economics expert who is doing a little dirty work on the side for the US government. The motive of industrial espionage is interesting and this movie unlike most similarly plotted movies of the time does not focus on cold war paranoia. When presented with an opportunity to progress in his role as a government fixer he is required to completely detach himself from the network of low level spies he has recruited. Unfortunately for them this means they all have to be killed. The clever script has Coburn arrange for all his contacts to murder each other. As none of them know each other he is able to play on their various fears and weaknesses to coax, cajole and blackmail them into submission. His elaborate plan involves strict timing with each of the the victims phoning Coburn at set times over the duration of one evening while he sits in his office ticking off the preplanned murder sequence he has typed up. Of course the plan doesn't quite work out and the film ends with a superb twist.The only fault i have with the movie is the presence of Lee Grant. Her character (as a journalist) is introduced to show that she once had a relationship with Coburns character, that they still have feelings for each other and that he once may have been a more wholesome person before becoming corrupted. However her characters continual interjections as she investigates Elliot only serve to slow down the story.DVD releases in both the UK and the US have failed to do this movie justice even the most recent "special edition". The low number of reviews posted reflects the relative obscurity of a movie that deserves a wider audience.

dbdumonteil The movie begins (and ends) like a political movie,a la Pakula .But if the "hero" is blamed for butchering democracy ,the essential is a thriller ,some very special "domino theory" .To get rid of some people who become embarrassing,the professor (a spy) ,pushes the "divide and rule" concept to its absolute limits and ,although completely implausible (all works out much too well) , displays an implacable logic in his sinister plans.Probably not great,but not derivative,and rather gripping.Main objection: Lee Grant's character is almost useless and her would be feminist journalist is only decorative.

Lee Eisenberg In one of his most eye-opening roles, James Coburn plays a US diplomat in England who gets hired to be one of the president's cabinet members. But several people know too much about his sordid past, so he decides to make sure that they don't reveal anything. So, he devises a plan to have each of them kill each other. But it turns out that they're ahead of him."The Internecine Project" has a very '70s look, with the pre-digital secret technology (which, combined with London's dreary nocturnal environs, gives the movie a more mysterious feel). Seeing how this movie came out during the Watergate era, I wonder whether it was playing off of people's growing suspicion of the government. But even if it wasn't, it still comes out really well. It does more to show what a great actor James Coburn was. Lee Grant, Harry Andrews and Ian Hendry also star.

RanchoTuVu The Internecine Project is a devious plan in which the people who were part of a spy operation are now in the way and become unwitting participants in a plan where they kill each other. The idea is that if you took a 60's era Cold War spy and appointed him or her, in this case James Coburn who's now a suave professor of economics who is a guest on TV news interviews for his views, to a top government post in the 70's (or beyond for that matter), that person would face a thorough background investigation, prompting him or her to eliminate anyone with any damaging knowledge that would derail the appointment. It seems like an extreme solution to the problem, but good enough to make a movie about. One wonders how many political appointees today have had to think up there own internecine projects in order to assure their Senate confirmations. The movie is mostly about the contrived plot and seems trivial and weak, held together more by the locations and some nice background music. Before the ball gets rolling Coburn shares neat scenes with each person on his list that build up the characters. Lee Grant's part as an idealist reporter who's in love with Coburn but doesn't trust his methods, doesn't add much, but Keenan Wynne has a few good scenes as one of Coburn's ruthless business and political connections.