The Age of Commercialism

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Perfect cast and a good story

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A rather unique conspiracy thriller / dark comedy, "Winter Kills" is based on a novel by Richard Condon of "The Manchurian Candidate" fame. It may not be nearly as well known, but it merits a look. Jeff Bridges stars as Nick Kegan, the younger half brother of an assassinated U.S. President. 19 years after the killing, Nick comes across a man who makes a dying confession that he was one of the gunmen. Nick then becomes determined to solve this old mystery, soldiering on even as his extremely rich and influential businessman father (John Huston) tries to manipulate the course of events. As Nick pursues leads, he realizes that the people he encounters cannot be taken at face value, and that not all of these leads are going to be particularly helpful.A sincere and likable performance by Bridges helps to anchor the tale, and there's a nonstop parade of famous faces in supporting roles and cameos: Anthony Perkins, Eli Wallach, Sterling Hayden, Dorothy Malone, Tomas Milian, Ralph Meeker, Toshiro Mifune, Richard Boone, and an uncredited Elizabeth Taylor. But despite all of these heavy hitters gracing the film with their presence, it's Huston that commands a great deal of attention. He does seem to be quite enjoying himself playing this overbearing and grandiose character. The beautiful Belinda Bauer is appealing as the love of Nicks' life.William Richert scripted, and directs the film as a commentary on the nature of politics, the real-life assassination of JFK, and the power wielded by the affluent 1% represented by Hustons' Pa Kegan. It's a rather intricate mystery, and the best part of it is that you can't be sure where it's going, and aren't two steps ahead of Nick the whole time. One particularly silly scene has an unlikely character attempting to dispose of Nick, only for the sequence to include a rather hilarious, gratuitous dose of T & A.Absorbing entertainment, with real-life production stories that are stranger than anything in the film.Seven out of 10.

When John Huston died in 1987, Premiere magazine had recommended this movie as one of his best in acting performances. Well, he's certainly interesting to watch as he chews the scenery whenever talking to his son as played by Jeff Bridges as they play the father and brother, respectively, of an assassinated president who was slain one day in 1960. Yes, I'm aware that Winter Kills was meant to be a satire of the Kennedy shooting and the conspiracy that allegedly surrounded it and for a while I was pretty entertained by some of the theories that certain characters played by such character actors like Sterling Hayden, Eli Wallach, Richard Boone, and Anthony Perkins provided. But after a while, the whole convolutedness of the whole thing was too confusing to me and the ending seemed too abrupt for my tastes. Still, I wasn't completely bored what with some interesting star gazing like that woman who played a high class madam (if you know what I mean) that I don't feel like revealing here and the film wasn't too long. So on that note, Winter Kills is at least worth a look. P.S. Writer/director William Richert provided some great commentary on the DVD especially when mentioning then-girlfriend Belinda Bauer who has a very funny and sexy scene here. I also have to admit that since the picture on the disc was pixilated on some sequences, I didn't hear the whole commentary and in fact, I saw what I missed of the movie on YouTube part of the time.

"Winter Kills" is a kind of a movie that works on several levels and does a good job in each and every one of them. It mixes black comedy, with political satire, mystery and conspiracy to create a dazzling mix up of possible assassination scenarios that anybody who tried to untangle it, ultimately gave up. Black comedy part show the ridicule of the system in which the quest for more power and money eats it's own children, and everything is crazy on purpose. Houston is great as Bridges' kingpin father and Perkins is a fabulous casting choice as the central figure that shows lunacy of the world of surveillance on everybody and everything."Winter Kills" can only appear silly to those who find air-tight logic in the Warren Commission, "lone gunmen" and "magic bullet" theories. Others who don't find those stories plausible or even sane, can find something for themselves in the movies such as "JFK", "Executive action" and "Winter kills", which shows the same topic in a different light. Worth seeing and even keeping.

This is a very interesting film about a president that was assassinated and nineteen years later the killer admits to this killing in front of his brother Nick Kegan,(Jeff Bridges). Nick also learns where the weapon that killed his brother was hidden and goes to Philadelphia, Pa to locate this rifle. Nick then proceeds to tell his father, Pa Kegan,(John Huston) about his findings, and he then instructs his son to investigate this new evidence and seek out different people to learn more about who planned this plot against his son Timothy Kegan. It seems that Nick gets the run-around wherever he goes and runs into all kinds of people, namely: Richard Boone, Sterling Hayden and Anthony Perkins who all give outstanding supporting roles. If you look real close, you will even see Elizabeth Taylor as a cameo. There is plenty of nudity and foul language and some torrid sex scenes. It was also a big surprise to see Dorothy Malone playing the role of Jeff Bridges mother, who was out of her mind in this film.