Pánico en Wall Street

Can a made-for-TV movie about leveraged buy outs ("LBO"s) be funny? Yup.

I haven't read the book but the teleplay by Gelbart is very amusing and sometimes hilarious. Be prepared for the profanity which generates some of the best laughs. "There should be a warning on every pack: Danger, these cigarettes will tear your b***s off."

But it isn't just the swearing that makes this movie as funny as it is. The set ups are marvelously done. The initial big celebration held by RJR Nabisco features a character who suffers a cruel cough every time he tries to light his cigarette until Garner comes over and flicks open a lighter to help him.

All the characters' roles are well written but I wish Fred Dalton Thompson had an expression other than his default -- as if he were watching his daughter marry a biker with a face tattoo. James Garner gets the palm, not just for his unforced and vulgar wit but for a breezy disregard for everything except his own wealth, exemplified in his fleet of jet airplanes with their private hangar. Garner keeps denigrating the pursuit of wealth for it's own sake -- "After all, how many sets of golf clubs can you be buried with?" -- but acts all the way through as if that were his one and only priority. In his own defense, he says indignantly, "I don't plan to be homeless -- or planeless either for that matter."

There must have been enormous pressure on Gelbart and the others involved to turn this movie "serious" towards the end, to bring in cancer and emphysema, a sobbing victim, a military-industrial conspiracy to undermine the health of the proletariat, to expose big business for the angry, villainous, mean-spirited, duplicitous cretins that they are but, thank Bog, Gelbart resisted any tendency to make the movie "about something." He keeps the ending as ironic as the rest of the film.

Poor Garner. He loses his job, "The first time I've been out of work since I was fourteen," he moans, and retires with a severance package amounting (after taxes) to only $23m. Close on a shot of a mansion in Palm Beach.

Entertaining look at the in-fighting involved in the takeover of the Nabisco Co. The CEO of Nabisco wants to buy out the company, but is thwarted by the machinations of a big money rival. A rousing financial war begins leading to a satisfying grand finale. I liked the dialogue, especially the witty quips that James Garner was fond of throwing out. Jonathan Pryce was great as the chilling corporate raider. Thumbs up.

I was delighted to stumble on this excellent TV movie late one night. Garner is great as the mega-rich company exec who comes unstuck when he tries to buy his own company. The financial shenanigans are well explained and there's genuine tension in the result. Based on a true story. It's like WALL STREET with laughs. [rating 9

"Barbarians at the Gates" is the insane true story of the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco. The stars are James Garner, Jonathan Pryce, Peter Riegert, Joanna Cassidy, Fred Dalton Thompson, Jeffrey DeMunn, Tom Aldredge, and David Rasche.

Upset that the stock price for RJR Nabisco isn't rising, and realizing that new item that was to raise it, Premier Cigarettes, taste and smell horrible, F. Ross Johnson (Garner), the CEO, decides to buy the company at $75 a share, which is $4 more than the stock's highest price. He gets the idea after talking to an expert in the LBO field, Henry Kravis (Pryce). When Kravis finds out that he's not involved in this LBO, he becomes upset. Soon, thanks to press releases that come out too soon, and embarrassing information hitting the papers, there are not only many players in the field, but the price being bid has gone up to $112 a share, meaning that the company will be put into billions and billions of dollars in debt.

The battle of egos is outrageous and all too believable in this story of what became a gigantic takeover contest. The film compresses some of the incidents, but the characters and behind the scenes happenings make it an intriguing, entertaining, and ultimately depressing story. Outside the New York office, one is shown countless homeless people while inside, people are talking about billions of dollars. A true '80s story of greed.

James Garner is fantastic and funny as good old boy, F. Ross Johnson, who gets into a game of oneupmanship with the elegant, quietly intense Kravis - Jonathan Pryce gives a tremendous performance as a man seething underneath while speaking very softly. Peter Riegert, as the man trying to put together the deal for Shearson Lehman is wonderful, as are two actors I've had the privilege of seeing on stage, Tom Aldredge as the head of the board of RJR Nabisco, and David Rasche, as a banker trying to get in on the deal. Fred Dalton Thompson and Joanna Cassidy are a married couple - she's the publicist for the LBO, and he's the CEO of American Express.

After seeing the documentary about Enron, I really thought nothing could top it. This does. If you want to be appalled by corporate behavior, don't miss it.

When you look at the dross that Hollywood throws money at and then forces on us at the local multiplex, one wonders why a TV film like this with so much intelligence and wit finds such a limited audience. 'Greed is good' as Gordon Gekko said and so believe just about all the protaganists of this wonderful script. James Garner is such a likeable actor that he makes his behaviour seem almost normal and natural. I'm not a great fan of Jonathan Pryce but he is perfect as the bloodless lizard Henry Travis. Larry Gelbart sustains the humour from beginning to end and the scene in the laboratory must be one of the funniest ever, and in laughing out loud I almost bust a gut as if I had been drawing on one of their new 'healthier' cigarettes.

Creavity does live in Hollywood and this film is testimony to it, so Studio Bosses give it its head and drop the remakes, seqeuls and prequels.