Looker (1981)

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to the best comedy of 1981.

And no, this one wasn't written by Mel Brooks, it didn't star Jerry Lewis and it had nothing to do with wacky teenage antics or Airplane!-style hijinx.

This movie features Albert Finney, Susan Dey and subliminal advertising. And flashy guns.

Yes. Flashy guns. And I don't mean fancy-looking guns. I mean...guns that flash light at you. And kill.

Anyone who was around in 1981 saw many ads for Looker in theaters and TV, all of which promised this to be an expose' (as it were) of the inside guts of TV advertising and how not only are there covert technological ways in which to bend your mind to buy floor wax, cars and breakfast cereal, but also that actual CGI technology was a lot farther along than what one may have thought.

That wasn't the ONLY drawing card for this'n, though, kids: because Looker was also written and directed by no less a man than Michael Crichton. He of hospital conspiracies (Coma), genetically-created dinosaurs (Jurassic Park) and the ever-thievin' exploits of Sean Connery (The Great Train Robbery).

And now that you're mentally-prepared, allow me to lay this on ya: Plastic surgeon Larry Roberts (Albert Finney) performs a series of minor alterations on a group of models who are seeking perfection within millimeters. The operations are a great success...except for the fact that his patients are suddenly turning up dead. Dr. Roberts becomes suspicious and, with the help of aspiring model Cindy (Susan Dey), does a little investigating of his own. What he uncovers are the mysterious - and perhaps murderous - activities of a high-tech computer company called Digital Matrix and its owner, the sinister and long-toothed Reston (James Coburn).

You wanna know what's happening? Well, I'll spoil it for you only because there can't be a plot to this as much as a series of fun house mirrors. Ready? These models are being scanned into computers by Digital Matrix so that they can be used over and over for any commercials Reston and company want. Why? Well, for one thing, no actor's unions to mess with.

I'd also guess it would be easy for Doc Roberts to notice his dead patients in new ads as much as it would be for you if you caught your long-lost sister or daughter or whatever in brand-new commercials year after year...long after her mangled body was found flung from an apartment balcony.

And on top of everything, there are subliminal flashes being superimposed over the eyes of the ads' models and mascots, making the viewer mutter "I want it" in response to whatever product they happen to be hawking at the time. I guess floor wax needs all the help it can get.

Okay, this is all well and good, but how do these models all keep getting killed with no witnesses or evidence? Simple: this is where the flashy guns mentioned before come in since, when you get flashed by one, you get stunned and blank out so that just about anything can be done to you - yes, even killed. And the one who gets flashed most often by these guns is poor Finney, who gets beaten, punched, thrown through windows and repeatedly thrashed within an inch of his life by the same guy: one who is never named but is credited simply as "Moustache Man" and is played by Tim Rossovich. And if that name is familiar, then you've watched a lot of movies in the late 70s - early 80s. Go look him up; you'll recognize him.

Tim's not the only one you'll recognize, however. Looker offers the attentive viewer an opportunity to play "Hey! It's THAT Guy/Girl!" throughout. In the course of this flick's 90-plus minutes you'll see Leigh-Taylor Young, Dorian Harewood, Terry Kiser (Bernie himself!), Melissa Prophet (Time Walker, Invasion USA), Vanna White (Yes. Vanna. White.), Randi Brooks (the ONLY good thing about Hamburger: The Movie) and your choice of Playboy Playmates.

My friends, the great Albert Finney has been many things - a signing Ebeneezer Scrooge, a tap-dancing Daddy Warbucks, a sleuthing Hercule Poirot - but he is NOT a California plastic surgeon. Finney, try as he might, looks absolutely bored, lost and helpless, standing around and letting the twisted, convoluted plot slap him silly and toss him from pillar to post. I'll also say that this is the most I've seen an actor of Finney's stature get beaten and bloodied without an Oscar in the offing.

You'll remember Susan Dey's salad days in "The Partridge Family" and "LA Law". There were lean years in-between, it seems, and times when a girl would do anything to get a part in a big movie. Even get naked, bless their heart. Which Susan does here, and most appreciatively. I guess it's my inner crush I had on her in her "Partridge" days, but she is very cute herein and, even though she plays the token "girl-that-gets-kidnapped-and-trapped-and-tied-up", she at least shows spunk...among other things.

Coburn was the best at playing sleazy baddies like here, and he does it with the vim and verve of a Bond villain, though what a Bond villain is doing in a movie about brainwashing through TV ads for floor wax is anybody's guess. But then again, Coburn could have been reading from a phone book and I'd listen to him. Or ordering a Schlitz Light. Either/or.

Is the movie any good, though? Looker is so glitzy and full of technical ideas and tricks, models in bikinis or just plain nude, those flashy guns getting flashed at poor dopes that get beaten repeatedly and a finale that involves a rotating stage, CGI actors and James Coburn's teeth that it doesn't help to review it as much as it does to think whether or not you were entertained. Not only by the break-neck pace but the endless, breathless adventure serial mentality of the thing.

I was.

And not one moment of this thing can be taken seriously, either. This is a laugh-fest of the highest order because 1) it takes itself WAY too seriously for a movie about CGI imagery and flashy guns, 2) Albert Finney as a swaggering sex symbol doesn't work, and 3) there is this theme song by Sue Saad called "She's a Looker" that not only has a Top-40 "written-in-10-minutes" feel to it but has an in-name-only quality that makes it feel like an after-thought just so they could have a catchy song on their soundtrack that might get airplay. I don't think it did, but anyway...

OH!

I almost forgot 4) Michael Crichton not only was involved story-wise but also direction-wise. Oh sure: Westworld, Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, but also Sphere, Rising Sun, Jurassic Park: The Lost World and Congo, lest ye forget.

So, Looker may not be good, but it ain't bad, and if the worst you do with a film of Looker's stature and pedigree is laugh uproariously, I would classify that as entertainment.

And when it comes to that, get entertainment any way you can from films with Albert Finney and flashy guns.