Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Martin Bradley Michael Caine made "A Shock to the System" in 1990 and I must have blinked and missed it, (me and a lot of others). He's Graham Marshall, a corporate businessman who is passed over for promotion in favour of his hot-shot subordinate Peter Riegert. Naturally, he doesn't take this too well. In fact, he feels that he's cursed in some way and he really should do something about it. As it turns out, "A Shock to the System" is a deliciously funny and dark comedy about a man who will go to any lengths, including murder, if it means getting ahead and Caine is terrific, (it's actually one of his best performances), and he's backed by an equally terrific supporting cast. Riegert is superbly slimy as Caine's new boss; then there's Elizabeth McGovern as the colleague who takes a shine to him, Swoosie Kurtz as his social-climbing wife, John McMartin as the out-going head of department and Will Patton as a very inquisitive cop. The director was Jon Egelson who doesn't revert to any tricks to tell his tale but rather relies on the quality of his material and his cast and it and they don't let him down.

kenjha After failing to get an expected promotion, an ad executive takes revenge on those responsible. It is a decent premise for a black comedy, and filmmakers carry on as if they are being clever and witty. However, the script leaves a lot to be desired. It's too cartoonish to be taken seriously as a crime drama and not wicked enough to be taken as a black comedy. The murder plans are too easy. Caine is well cast as the man who feels he has been wronged by society. Oddly, he provides the narration in third person. Although their roles are limited, McGovern, Riegert, Kurtz, and Patton provide good support. Given their age difference of nearly thirty years, it's a little creepy seeing Caine romance McGovern.

zardoz-13 Director Jan Egleson's corporate revenge thriller "A Shock to the System" is the kind of movie where evil trounces evil. Michael Caine is cast as a career-minded adverting executive with a wife and a mortgage who is in line for a richly deserved promotion. Everybody believes that he will get his promotion, including his wife who like to short out their home electric system with her stair master exercise machine. Unfortunately, Graham Marshall (Michael Caine of "Funeral in Berlin) learns to his chagrin that he has lost his promotion to another company employment. The humor underlying this big business melodrama is as hopelessly amoral as the protagonist is murderous. Caine is a genuinely evil. He winds up killing his way to the top of his advertising firm. A family man who rides a commuter train to work in New York City in the morning, Graham isn't pleased about losing his long-sought affair promotion. The first half of the action is slow-going, with lots of exposition, but Egleson ramps up the action considerably during the second half. Our hero Graham Marshall"), isn't pleased when a younger man, Robert Benham (Peter Riegert of "Animal House"), lands the promotion. Caine has to kiss ass while Benham takes the company in a different direction. Meanwhile, Graham is having trouble with his wife, Leslie (Swoosie Kurtz), and her infernal stair-master machine. Virtually, every time that she uses the exercise machine, the stairmaster shortens out the electricity and Graham has to reset it. He gets the surprise of his life when he is shocked trying to reset his breaking box. In short, Graham kills his wife as well as several more corporate big-wigs until he ends up running the business. "A Shock to the System" is a ghoulish bit of nonsense that doesn't wear out its welcome at 88 minutes.

Rodrigo Amaro In a time where succeeding at things is more important than just make something good and be satisfied with what you have and what you are "A Shock to the System" is the real article on how things go in our heads everyday when we don't get the things we want, or feel that we deserve them. The things we want to do with everyone in our way are greatly and humored to a certain extent by the character played by Michael Caine, an veteran executive that after not getting the job promotion he was hoping for, given to an incompetent and younger rival, starts to get rid off the people who are ruining his life and starts to concentrate his efforts in trying to be promoted. And there's time to have a small affair with his young and beautiful secretary (Elizabeth McGovern). By getting rid off, I mean in the Patrick Bateman style. To him those people, his demanding wife, his former colleague now current boss, they doesn't deserve to live.Viciously funny, well-acted and more relevant to our times than to the yuppie era when this was released, "A Shock to the System" is perhaps one of the finest examples of dark humor to ever be used on screen. It's not violent like one might think it could be, or ridiculously comical neither so serious. It makes good statements about the day to day pressures, the lack of reward one has while working hard at everything, but such statement is presented in a light and entertaining way. And it's such a pleasure to see Michael Caine carefully plan his actions and later desperately trying to get away with murder. The one involving his wife (Swoosie Kurtz) is priceless. It took some real time to make me laugh but when that part came in, with his reaction on the phone, I really knew I was watching something special. It's a electric and powerful performance in a underrated film. My only problem comes to the investigation led by Will Patton's character. It's too unlikely that he was the responsible for investigating the wife's "accidental" death and the boat explosion, just with the logic that there's too many deaths around Caine's character. The movie would benefit more without the detective character, or reduce to the minimum the coincidences of him following the executive. Here's a small film that accomplishes so much more than the big ones with larger than life budgets and no story to tell. This one has one to tell and it's a very good one. 9/10