Other People's Money (1991) Reviews

• Very enjoyable movie

  c160312003-10-23

  When I'm in the mood for a movie, I usually go to IMDB to check out it's rating. I try to avoid seing movies below a rating of 7. Who's got time to lose listening to a bad movie, right? Then, as I surf IMDB, I sometimes wander around checking other user's impressions of movies I've seen, I'm curious that way. And as I do that, I can also get a feel of the credibility I can give the rating system. Well, the rating I saw for "Other People's Money" blew my mind! I can't believe it has such a low rating. It's one of my favorite movies. I love the script, the clashing of ideas and values. I love the characters, the're very representative, opinionated, true and strong, and they're very well played. The movie's full of strong scenes: Garfield's first visit to the New England Wire's Co ("I like round numbers"), Garfield's chewing of his lawyer's ("You know what happens when the commies take over, the first thing they do is shoot all the lawyers!"), and of course the stockholder's meeting scene which alone is worth the whole movie. It is one of my most memorable movie scenes ever. I seriously have a hard time finding flaws in this movie. I've read reviews about how it wasn't true to the play - I didn't even know it started out, or was based on a play. I guess a lot of IMDB voters were disappointed in the treatment this movie made of the play and accordingly gave a bad score. My point is: so what? A movie should be judged upon what it is, not what it could or should have been. It deserves to be evaluated fairly as a "whole", not in relation to doubtful and personal expectations. I hate biased ratings. After seing the score this movie got on IMDB, I've lost a lot of faith in the value of using the rating system as a bearing for movies I'll want to see. My advice: don't be fooled. See this movie and judge for yourself.

• Excellent!

  de_niro_20012000-08-03

  Everybody does well in this film. Danny De Vito plays the kind of character he normally plays. In fact, Larry the Liquidator is just a super rich Louie De Palma. Gregory Peck is his usual good upright self. The only other film I've seen Piper Laurie in is Carrie so it's something different to see her as a benign grandmotherly type. However, Penelope Ann Miller was the main reason I watched. She's a gorgeous lass and the film would not have been what it was without her. I just love the scene where she goes into Danny De Vito's office and the camera starts at her shoes and goes all the way up to her beautiful face and Danny goes "wow". I agree with Danny that she has a nice laugh.

• Macro Economics with flair

  alrodbel1999-10-05

  I bought this used Video and waited months before bothering to see what I had expected to be a hackneyed stereotypical flick. What a delightful surprise. It is easy to produce a film that is pedantic, or to the other extreme, ridiculous- but to combine engaging characters, biting humor and realistic representation of economic forces is a rare feat. You could study Shumpeter's "Economic theory of Creative Destruction of Obsolete Forms of Production," but you will not get a better illustration of the process than what is presented in this movie. DiVito portrayed the perfect balance of greed, and humanity as the Wall Street mogul. Penelope Ann Miller played the sharp, voluptious antaganist to perfection. This film is a rare nugget of intelligent entertainment that stands out in the sea of juvenilia.

• DeVito can't miss

  Ron-1812000-11-15

  Another Danny DeVito triumph. He always gives a strong performance. An excellent cast including Penelope Miller, Gregory Peck and Dean Jones. This film welcomes you to the real world of business take overs and DeVito pulls it off convincingly. Clever dialogue and good pace make for an entertaining film. I rated this an 8.

• Brilliant film

  javaguru2002-01-20

  Danny DeVito is sensational as Lawrence Garfield, aka. Larry the Liquidator. The movie was chugging along nicely, but nothing special until the proxy fight where Andrew Jorgenson, the we've-always-done-it-this-way founder of the company, and "Larry the Liquidator" give speeches to the assembled shareholders. After Jorgenson's speech I was about to write the movie off as another flawed Hollywood portrayal of business and economics, but then comes Larry's speech which is the high point of the movie. Larry's speech is absolutely fantastic and surprising. The rest of the movie is filled in nicely if not spectacularly. The romance between Larry and Jorgenson's smart and attractive lawyer Kate Sullivan is a nice touch and serves to add another dimension to DeVito's character. The resolution with Jorgenson's company at the end is contrived and the only real detraction from the movie, but that's Hollywood. One of my all-time favorite movies. I give it a 9, and that puts it in my top 5%.