WRONG IS RIGHT (1982: Dir. Richard Brooks)
One doesn't often refer to a comedy as "chilling" but there is no other way to describe Writer-Director-Producer Richard Brooks' lampoon of Reagan-era media and politics. In an uncanny turn of prognostication, Brooks (Elmer Gantry, Bite The Bullet) predicts the rise of Saddam Hussein, suicide bombers operating on U.S. soil, and a climax that culminates in a terrorist plot involving a landmark New York skyscraper (!!). The film is populated by a cadre of comic characters including intimidating black actress Rosalind Cash as a Condeleeza Rice-type vice-president, and Leslie Nielsen, running for President, while spouting reactionary rhetoric in George W. Bush Texas yokel mode. The film, however, belongs to star Sean Connery, who with tongue firmly in cheek, turns in a delicious performance as a superstar globetrotting news reporter. Memorable for its squirm-inducing critique of our post-millennial celebrity-obsessed culture, this was the Dr. Strangelove of its era, and was shamefully ignored at the time of its release, much to our future peril. DVD REGION 1 & 2
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