THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS started off fine, with a good soundtrack, stylish production values and the always appealing Michael J Fox as a country boy from Kansas who heads out to the Big Apple to start his career and also finds his dream girl (Helen Slater). I was particularly amused by one of the opening scenes in which he's in a New York phonebooth having a conversation with his mother as a nearby liquor store is robbed and a gunfight between criminals and police ensues. "It's just 'Miami Vice'," he assures his mother, crouching on the floor as bullets shatter the glass and Plymouth squad cars screech to a halt right next to the phonebooth. "They, uh, just trashed the Ferrari."
75% of this film worked really well. It's just a shame that the ending was such a letdown; the movie stumbled in an overlong, confusing scene in which numerous characters run around a mansion at night with the very ill-fitting "Oh Yeah" playing in the background. Nothing against the song of course; it's a brilliant song, but what exactly has it got to do with some people in nightshirts sneaking around? And the film's conclusion has a false, self-congratulatory, they-all-lived-happily-ever-after feel to it which just doesn't do justice to everything else that's been set up so far. A good movie, but it could have been so much better. Two and a half stars out of four.
75% of this film worked really well. It's just a shame that the ending was such a letdown; the movie stumbled in an overlong, confusing scene in which numerous characters run around a mansion at night with the very ill-fitting "Oh Yeah" playing in the background. Nothing against the song of course; it's a brilliant song, but what exactly has it got to do with some people in nightshirts sneaking around? And the film's conclusion has a false, self-congratulatory, they-all-lived-happily-ever-after feel to it which just doesn't do justice to everything else that's been set up so far. A good movie, but it could have been so much better. Two and a half stars out of four.