This is not a black comedy. It's not an anything comedy. There's not one funny, or even remotely funny, thing in the movie. It's an extremely boring and ultimately depressing movie about one of the most unlikable protagonists I've ever seen in a movie. In fact, I disliked every character, including the constantly smirking young girl who is unbelievably attracted to a guy old enough to be her grandfather. In fact, virtually every event and every character in this film were totally unbelievable, including a police detective who acted about as much like a detective as a turnip acts like a palm tree. Note to the sound mixer, it is amateurish and extremely annoying to have the music louder than the dialog. SPOILER ALERT -- The most depressing thing about this movie is the ending. I hated this guy and the only reason I kept watching was to see how he got caught, arrested, shot, killed, whatever, but -- SPOILER -- he doesn't. He does all these awful things and succeeds, and smirks, The End. Give me a break. One star is too many.

A Shock to the System is directed by Jan Egleson and adapted to screenplay by Andrew Klavan from the novel written by Simon Brett. It stars Michael Caine, Elizabeth McGovern, Peter Riegert, Will Patton and Swoosie Kurtz. Music is by Gary Chang and cinematography by Paul Goldsmith.Graham Marshall (Caine) is once again overlooked for promotion and once again his harpy wife (Kurtz) belittles him.Then a heated exchange at the train station results in the accidental death of a beggar, and he gets away with it, something which gives Graham some devilish thoughts, one of Satan's light bulbs ignited above his head.By his own admission Michael Caine has readily done films just to pay the bills or build a new house. His success ratio as per great films and performances to bad films and tired performances probably stacks up as 1 in 10, consider this, in this same year he made Bullseye! What we do know though, is that when he gets it right he knocks it out the park and thus makes all his bad films easy to forgive.A Shock to the System is an under valued film on his CV, a brilliantly constructed black comedy that finds Caine effortlessly shifting through the emotional gears. From beat down Milquetoast to ruthless killer with a glint in his eye, Caine plays it to perfection. There's stabs of humour along the way, Caine a natural at this of course, and he even gets a young love interest in the form of the unbelievably cute Lizzie McGovern. Interesting to note that Graham's sex life improves greatly once the killing begins!Driven by an antagonist who toys with the audiences sympathies and moral repulsions, this is a film that's deserving of greater exposure and is ripe for re-evaluation. Great film, great Caine. 9/10

Michael Caine receives "A Shock to the System" in this 1990 black comedy also starring Swoosie Kurtz, Elizabeth McGovern, John McMartin, Will Patton, and Peter Riegert. Caine plays Graham Marshall, a New York ad exec on the verge of getting a huge new promotion as the company changes hands. Alas, the promotion goes to a younger man, Robert Benham (Peter Riegert). Frustrated and miserable, as Graham waits for the subway, he gets into a fight with a beggar and pushes the man, who lands on the tracks as the train arrives.When Graham realizes that he probably committed murder and doesn't feel any different, he finds that murder is a great solution to some of his more vexing problems and starts dispensing with people one by one by various means. Then his involvement with a young woman (Elizabeth McGovern) leads to danger.This is the blackest of comedies with a great performance by Michael Caine who manages to seem very likable throughout. Caine plays the role very seriously, as he should, and lets the humor come out in his actions. Peter Riegert as the new boss is someone you'd like to slap silly, and Swoosie Kurtz does a fine job playing Graham's annoying wife.Recommended.

I'd love to know if the part of Graham, the droll-voiced, rage-repressed Brit, confined to a suburban Connecticut prison and a Madison Avenue job he secretly loathes, was written especially for Michael Caine. It really could have been, and not because he does such a fine job with it.No, "A Shock To The System" is really a much more British-type thriller than an American one. It is extremely dark, remorseless in its cold-hearted execution of moral-less morals and it laughs in our face at every confounding expectation.Graham is all about pent-up anger and we love him for that. When the promotion he has been banking on for several years falls through the cracks to land in the lap of a sycophantic, smarmy Yuppie (played smoothly by the effortless Peter Riegert, looking very young here), he decides he's had enough, and concocts a fiendish scheme that's so brilliant and manipulative, it just might work.Another reason why this film strikes me as so un-American is that it is really all about the suspense, not the pay-offs. It keeps a deliciously taut tension throughout that's so well executed, you really forget there are few really jarring moments (save one, that makes the entire picture worth watching).And not just Caine is well cast. Liz McGovern has her long-overdue leading-lady performance and bags it effortlessly. Similar strong support to Swoosie Kurtz who plays Graham's ditsy but demanding wife with such bubble-headed ease that its difficult to hate her; Jenny Wright, who always brings a nicely fresh ingénue quality to whatever role she plays; Will Patton, whose stern, no-BS attitude makes him a formidable adversary to Graham's misdeeds; but most of all to John McMartin, whose portrait of a virtuous but increasingly apathetic executive will ring bells in many people's heads and hearts.The ending is a bit of a cheat, but you'll live. The movie as a whole will resonate as clearly as Gary Chang's wonderfully pensive score, rendered flawlessly by the Turtle Island String Quartet.