"Wrong is Right" (1982) w/ Sean Connery, Leslie Nielsen

[BluBonnet]

Wrong is Right is probably the most bananas movie that Sean Connery was ever in - and yes, I have seen Highlander 2: The Quickening.

Released right before the summer in 1982, the movie bombed and has been largely forgotten. What can you say about a movie that brings together Sean Connery, Leslie Nielsen, Dean Stockwell, Henry Silva and Katherine Ross? Not to mention one of the earliest film appearances by a very young Jennifer Jason Leigh.

This is a movie where Nielsen playing a semi-deranged former US president seeking re-election is one of the least crazy things about the movie. And that's really saying something!

Never released on blu-ray, I caught this on Amazon Prime, where it's free for members. Well worth two hours of your time of you're feeling adventurous!

[Zivouhr]

Cool. Thanks for the details. I'm a big fan of Leslie Nielsen after seeing the Naked Gun comedy films (just picturing him in those films makes me laugh as I type), and that cast sounds pretty cool. I'll have to check it out. Thanks.

Wrong Is Right - real classic movie trailer - YouTube

[trevanian]

I wonder if I've actually seen this movie more than anybody else on the planet. Caught it three times in the theater first-run, owned it on every format I came across, still waiting on a blu. Even read the source novel THE BETTER ANGELS,which is played straight. (full disclosure: the movie had WRATH OF KHAN's trailer on it, which was probably one of the reasons I went back another couple times.)

Yeah, it is an utter mess of a movie, tonally all over the place. But the bits by themselves are often quite good. And it is as knowing -- or should that be prescient? -- about int'l politics as much higher-regarded films.

Connery gets a 'big speech' moment (probably demanded after his
'little speech' moment in OUTLAND, which is among his best bits ever IMO) that almost works, and it is hard for me to imagine anybody else in the role. Connery's is still my alltime favorite star/actor, and while he delivers a few times here, it is more about the wonderful ensemble cast (minus a couple of performers who look like actual amateurs, or perhaps stunt people who got way too many lines to try to read.)

Nielsen doesn't really get the good moments in this, but Robert Conrad makes the most of his, as does Henry Silva (though most folks probably remember him from this same year playing roughly the same terrorist in the godawful and irredeemably stupid MEGAFORCE, a movie that gives spandex a worse place in history than it already earned in the 70s, in which there is not even one sacrificial lamb to placate the god's of realistic storytelling.) Your favorite college basketball coach/pro football coach GD Spradlin is just terrific as the head of the CIA.

George Grizzard is absolutely super as the President, making this, like the TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING (fave film of all time, don't ask me to explain) prez played by Durning, another film where the second-billed character is really the meat of the whole film.

For me, Richard Brooks made three masterpieces: THE PROFESSIONALS, BITE THE BULLET and LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR (have tried watching IN COLD BLOOD a few times and never made it past the first hour); but I actually rewatch WRONG IS RIGHT as much as I rewatch THE PROFESSIONALS, which means I've probably seen it 40 times by now.

[thecooldud]

John Saxon too!
This looks a hoot, never heard of it before!

[trevanian]

Originally Posted by thecooldud

John Saxon too!
This looks a hoot, never heard of it before!

I got a kick out of Saxon being together in frame with Connery, because I have always thought the DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER poster looks more like Saxon than Connery (the hair on Bond's head in the poster looks like that lean bit of hair-like material Saxon always maintained, plus Bond appears shorter than the two girls in the poster, which also suggest Saxon, who must be way smaller than Connery's 6'2".)

Another thing worth mentioning is the score, which often sounds like something from the early to mid 60s (especially an early music cue showing NYC from the air, which has a fun dated 'look at that!' feel you'd almost think belonged in THAT GIRL or a Robert Morse musical comedy.) I'd almost call the score wacky. It might be interesting to play more traditional scoring under the movie, to see what it played like with any generic Horner score of the period (48HRS, GORKY PARK, COMMANDO and RED HEAT being perfectly interchangeable -- in what should be a most legally-actionable kind of way -- except for occasional instances of different flavors turning up in orchestration.)

[BluRayTim]

Originally Posted by trevanian

I got a kick out of Saxon being together in frame with Connery, because I have always thought the DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER poster looks more like Saxon than Connery (the hair on Bond's head in the poster looks like that lean bit of hair-like material Saxon always maintained, plus Bond appears shorter than the two girls in the poster, which also suggest Saxon, who must be way smaller than Connery's 6'2".)

Another thing worth mentioning is the score, which often sounds like something from the early to mid 60s (especially an early music cue showing NYC from the air, which has a fun dated 'look at that!' feel you'd almost think belonged in THAT GIRL or a Robert Morse musical comedy.) I'd almost call the score wacky. It might be interesting to play more traditional scoring under the movie, to see what it played like with any generic Horner score of the period (48HRS, GORKY PARK, COMMANDO and RED HEAT being perfectly interchangeable -- in what should be a most legally-actionable kind of way -- except for occasional instances of different flavors turning up in orchestration.)

Those women standing next to Sean Connery could’ve been wearing six inch heels.

[trevanian]

Or the Jessica Rabbit defense: they weren't really tall, they were just drawn that way.

It looks like it was an early attempt at the stretchification of characters in Bond posters that hits its zenith with VIEW TO A KILL and OCTOPUSSY.