From director John G. Avildsen comes a story that you think will go one way and instead goes down another path. It does involved Nazis -- including a very cool opening sequence -- but ends up being more about big business and billions of dollars on the line from international corporations that end up all but ruling the world. Think Syriana meets Who Killed the Electric Car?, and you've got this movie. I don't know what to think of it, liking it at times and groaning as the "twists" are revealed. Like any movie I guess, take the good and the bad.
A former government agent turned Los Angeles police officer, Lt. Barney Caine (George C. Scott) is called in to lead a murder investigation. Caine is startled to find it is the murder of an old friend and a fellow police officer. But as he examines the evidence at the scene, something doesn't add up. Something seems forced, but he follows what is presented to him and ends up traveling to Germany as the clues and evidence present themselves. His friend was apparently involved in some high-end things -- drugs, big business (including oil chairman Marlon Brando) and billions of dollars -- that few were aware of. Was Caine's friend involved in something bigger than all of that though? Something worth killing more people over? As the bodies start to pile up, Caine wonders what exactly is going on, and if he could be next.
Complicated, twisting storylines typically go two ways. One, it is a well-written, well thought out complicated plot that works if you pay attention and keep up with it. Two, it is complicated for the sake of being hard to follow. That's The Formula. I resent when reviewers say a viewer who doesn't "get it" wasn't paying attention. Here, I paid attention, but the twists are too ridiculous, too convenient to even come close to making sense. It isn't so much a Nazi splinter group of survivors pulling the strings as big business with monetary concerns doing the work. Just too many things happen that are explained in one quick conversation. If it is going to work, some sort of clue has to be given. If not, that isn't a twist. It's just lazy on the part of the script.
In its twists and turns, 'Formula' probably tries to do to much. It was billed as the movie that "the oil companies don't want you to see." The subject matter is probably dead-on accurate as to how the oil companies actually work, but it is handled in such a heavy-handed fashion that the message gets murky and even darkly comical and over the top. The formula is a German solution and equation to create a synthetic fuel that will replace the world's need for oil. Naturally the oil companies want to cover up its existence and are willing to do just about everything possible to keep it under wraps. The story does keep you guessing as to everyone's motives, and it ends on a pessimistic note, but the story is so far all over the place that it never gels as a finished product.
On to the positives, few that they are. In well-written movies or schlock like this, George C. Scott is almost always a watchable movie star. He is intense, believable, and feels like he's never acting (to me at least). His Barney Caine character keeps the movie grounded in its police procedural roots -- albeit one that has him globe-trotting and involved in multi-billion dollar deals. He's more than a little fed up with the system, the higher-ups, and the limitations placed on him. Caine is an old school cop/investigator who is just going to get the job done, and Scott is a bright spot among the bigger mess. Another positive, the opening in spring 1945 as German stares the end of the war dead in the face. The closing days of WWII (really, any war) are Dramatic Situations 101, and the tension and mood are great in this quick but effective opener.
Okay, now back to the negatives! Yeah, more fun! Brando got a paycheck for this one, and I think that's all he was worried about. His extended cameo as the chairman of an oil corporation as the actor -- maybe Hollywood's all-time best actor -- hamming it up in such an over the top fashion that it is either unintentionally bad or a brilliant choice by a brilliant actor. I lean toward unintentionally bad, but who knows? The rest of the cast is okay, including Marthe Keller as Lisa, a source for Caine in Germany, John Gielgud as a German scientist who escaped from the Russians, G.D. Spradlin as Clements, a higher-up official with his hand in everything, and a long cast listing following them, none really making much of an impression positive or negative. It was cool to see WWII movie vet Wolfgang Preiss in a small part if nothing else.
Needlessly confusing at times, boring at others, and even a memorable lead performance from George C. Scott can't save this one.
The Formula <---TCM clip (1980): **/****
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