Word: kotcheff
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...smooth and competent, and the football scenes, with their low angle shots of huge players against the unrelieved blackness of the sky--take on a surrealistic quality that is shockingly enhanced by the crunch of bone and startling flashes of violence. The only element ignored by director Ted Kotcheff is the fans, who are never even glimpsed. Maybe it's just as well--you can only take so much of that decadent-Romans-drooling-over-the-slaves-being-eaten-by-lions stuff. But you can't help but feel that a whole dimension of professional sports has been left...
Directed by Ted Kotcheff...
...slightest whim. It is little more than an excuse for cameo appearances by top European actors (Philippe Noiret, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Jean Rochefort) and restaurants (Paris' Tour d' Argent, London's Café Royal). The settings are sumptuously photographed by John Alcott (Barry Lyndon), but Ted Kotcheff s direction is lifeless. Were it not for the creepy musical score and endless interrogation scenes, it would be difficult to tell that Chefs is a suspense drama...
STILL, MOST of the blame for stereotypic characterization belongs to director Kotcheff and his scriptwriter Mordecai Richler, the same team responsible for the superior The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. By choosing the names Dick and Jane (and Billy for their child, Spot for their dog), Richler intends to present a typical family. At one point, Dick shouts that he won't be destroyed, because he represents the American middle class. But this conception of the middle class appears ludicrous, unless Richler wishes to depict the average Beverly Hills household, replete with swimming pool and cabana. It's difficult to sympathize...
Indeed, the only people who deserve to stand on an unemployment line are the producers of Fun with Dick and Jane. The true criminals of the film, they probably discovered this script sitting at the bottom of the television movie rejects pile. But, after all, Kotcheff proves that crime pays, as each person in his audience leaves the theatre three dollars and fifty cents poorer...