My review was written in January 1990 after a Times Square screening.
"Everybody Wins' Is a very disappointing picture. Repping Arthur Miller's first feature film screenplay since "The Misfits" in 1961, the Karel Reisz-helmed film noir is nearly unreleasable and has virtually no chance of attracting an audience.
Eyebrows in the trade were raised when Orion opened the film cold with no press screening, despite its Miler and Reisz pedigrees plus the presence of stars Debra Winger and Nick Nolte. Reason is obvious: this big-budget prestige picture is obscure and artificial, with appeal only for a handful of film buffs.
As such, it casts doubt on the commercial acumen of producer Jeremy Thomas, repping the first film under this much-trumpeted internationally funded production program (the second, currently in production for Warner Brothers release, also stars Winger -Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Sheltering Sky"). Pic has the oddball, easily resistible cryptic qualities of shuch Thomas productions as "Eureka" and "The Shout", rather than the appeal of his Oscar-winner "The Last Emperor".
Overladen with pompous and frequently dated dialog, Miller's script (developed from his 1982 pair of one-act plays, "Two-Way Mirror") is essentially a routine whodunit. Nolte plays an investigator called in by seeming Good Samaritan Winger to get young Frank Military out of jail for a murder she claims he did not commit. Nolte doggedly pursues various leads, interviews odd people and discovers a web of corruption engulfing a small Connecticut town.
Unfortunately, film founders immediately due to the miscasting of Winger as a schizo femme fatale who is, Nolte finds out in later reels, a notorious local prostitute. She copes uneasily with Miller's overblown dialog, which has her alternately putting on airs to a bewildered Nolte or handing him non sequiturs.
Not helping matters is the lack of chemistry between Nolte and Winger in their sex scenes here.
Supporting cast has rather brief assignments, with self-destructive baddie Will Patton overplaying his hand. Jack Warden as a smoothie judge is transparent, while Judith Ivey is wasted in an underdeveloped part as Nolte's sister. A subplot involving what might be a Manson-like religious cult run by Patton is introduced but never properly followed up.
The production captures the gloomy look of a decaying rust belt town in Connecticut well; it was shot in Norwich with studio work in Wilmington, North Carolina. Funky songs by Leon Redbone are inserted to try and pep up this downbeat pic, but come off as artificial.
Miller's cynical ending fits the piece, but is overly glib in painting a society beyond hope of reform. Warden enunciates his corny tagline: "You can't save the goddamn world", and the viewer is likely to yawn in response.
"Everybody Wins' Is a very disappointing picture. Repping Arthur Miller's first feature film screenplay since "The Misfits" in 1961, the Karel Reisz-helmed film noir is nearly unreleasable and has virtually no chance of attracting an audience.
Eyebrows in the trade were raised when Orion opened the film cold with no press screening, despite its Miler and Reisz pedigrees plus the presence of stars Debra Winger and Nick Nolte. Reason is obvious: this big-budget prestige picture is obscure and artificial, with appeal only for a handful of film buffs.
As such, it casts doubt on the commercial acumen of producer Jeremy Thomas, repping the first film under this much-trumpeted internationally funded production program (the second, currently in production for Warner Brothers release, also stars Winger -Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Sheltering Sky"). Pic has the oddball, easily resistible cryptic qualities of shuch Thomas productions as "Eureka" and "The Shout", rather than the appeal of his Oscar-winner "The Last Emperor".
Overladen with pompous and frequently dated dialog, Miller's script (developed from his 1982 pair of one-act plays, "Two-Way Mirror") is essentially a routine whodunit. Nolte plays an investigator called in by seeming Good Samaritan Winger to get young Frank Military out of jail for a murder she claims he did not commit. Nolte doggedly pursues various leads, interviews odd people and discovers a web of corruption engulfing a small Connecticut town.
Unfortunately, film founders immediately due to the miscasting of Winger as a schizo femme fatale who is, Nolte finds out in later reels, a notorious local prostitute. She copes uneasily with Miller's overblown dialog, which has her alternately putting on airs to a bewildered Nolte or handing him non sequiturs.
Not helping matters is the lack of chemistry between Nolte and Winger in their sex scenes here.
Supporting cast has rather brief assignments, with self-destructive baddie Will Patton overplaying his hand. Jack Warden as a smoothie judge is transparent, while Judith Ivey is wasted in an underdeveloped part as Nolte's sister. A subplot involving what might be a Manson-like religious cult run by Patton is introduced but never properly followed up.
The production captures the gloomy look of a decaying rust belt town in Connecticut well; it was shot in Norwich with studio work in Wilmington, North Carolina. Funky songs by Leon Redbone are inserted to try and pep up this downbeat pic, but come off as artificial.
Miller's cynical ending fits the piece, but is overly glib in painting a society beyond hope of reform. Warden enunciates his corny tagline: "You can't save the goddamn world", and the viewer is likely to yawn in response.