Barbarians at the Gate, based on the book by Bryan Burrough - Nine out of 10

Barbarians at the Gate, based on the book by Bryan Burrough

Nine out of 10

This is a note on the Film, based on the book by Bryan Burrough and the repetition of this detail is meant to avoid any confusion

This seemed to be a spectacular motion picture, when the undersigned has seen it for the first time, perhaps some twenty years ago, when the machinations, the secrets, complicated, devious maneuvers associated with the effort to take control of a major American company, making tobacco at the time – here it was not even frowned upon, in fact, in our land, the cigarettes were so much coveted that they were used as a form of parallel currency…true, the national one was valued at distorted levels and people loved to receive Kent cartons, when in a doctor’s office, for papers, or any kind of bribe or gift.

Seen the other day, this movie has lost some of its luster, because we are used with HD, 4k or for the privileged ones, even more advanced technologies and besides, the fight which was so unusual, outré at the time, now looks like so much déjà vu, with multinationals merging, then divesting, as in the case of Mercedes and Chrysler, then Chrysler and Fiat, joined by Citroen and the chess games are so many and complicated…

One other bizarre detail is the one that only two – three now – critics have written about this production, at least if we look at the IMDB site.

Furthermore, the main character of F. Ross Johnson aka marvelous James Garner seems somehow not perfectly credible in that he is charming, making jokes all the time, with a humor that looks like never leaving him, even when in the toilet, under maximum pressure or in the extremely tense negotiations that would seal the fate of RJR Nabisco, where he is the CEO, and his own as he would either become king on the hill or be ejected by future owners of the huge conglomerate, making the Sublime and the…Oreo biscuits…

Henry Kravis is the other major figure of this Power Game, played by the magnificent pope (joke, he just played Pope Francis in the recently acclaimed Two Popes) Jonathan Pryce.

Kravis is the one who gives the idea of a major move that would involve the takeover of Nabisco by its boss and a group of close companions, resulting in more than a billion dollars – a sum that we have to multiply to arrive at current day figures – for the management company controlled by Johnson and thus for the CEO himself

This would be a major detail that would aggravate the board that has to study the offers made for the shares and they would incline against the one that they see as too greedy in the search for profits and personal gain…

Quite convincingly, the main figure of the plot would insist a few times that he is not in for the money – he would even tell the secret that he would have paid to be allowed to be the CEO, he enjoys it so much.

Indeed, we have seen him in the opening scenes as the ultimate, juvenile salesman, as he is making a pitch to a neighbor, telling him to subscribe to some magazine, enticing this prospective client with a month free subscription and showing a premature talent…

Thus, F. Ross would keep saying he is actually a salesman and when people buy something from one like him, they buy him, what he is, not so much the product and he wants to have things to package and sell…not to acquire companies…

Alas, his interlocutor is sure he knows what F. in F. Ross Johnson stands for…in case you have not guessed…it stands for Fuck as in the one who fucks competitors, those who stand in the way and pretty much everyone…

It will be a rollercoaster ride, for the CEO makes an offer for $ 90 per share, but Kravis would move to bid over that and in discussions would make clear that he would purge Nabisco and many if not all the perks of the CEO would go.

We learn that this man enjoys a fleet of private jets, with permanently employed pilots, a luxuriant residence in Palm Springs and another place…

He claims these millions are just small change, but there is also the issue of the new, smokeless cigarettes that 95% of those in the test and all that appear on screen have agreed that they taste like…shit.

The project has cost about half a billion dollars and it is all going down the…toilet