The Big Fix (1978) User Reviews

Two levels of nostalgia pervade counterculture gumshoe thriller

[bmacv · 7/10 · 16 October 2001]

When it was released in 1978, there was already a distance built into The Big Fix, based on a detective novel set in the ashes of the counterculture. The story had been commissioned by Rolling Stone magazine from Roger L. Simon, who wrote the script. On its release, the film was already drawing on images of the late 60s that had ceased to be memories but had already entered a misty mythology.

Richard Dreyfuss, fresh from the Spielberg hits (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) that had made him a star. not to mention his Academy Award for The Goodbye Girl), plays Moses Wine, aonetime rebel who has fallen on hardtimes. His wife, Bonnie Bedelia, has divorced him (though he dotes --rather tiresomely -- on his two sons), and he earns his keep as aprivate investigator when not smoking up and playing solitaire Clue in his -- there's no other word -- "pad."

Operatives of a political campaign sign him on to find out who is waging a dirty-tricks campaign to link their candidate to a legendary radical, now disappeared deep into the underground. The story has some interesting twists, particularly those involving Susan Anspach, John Lithgow and F. Murray Abraham, but the plot tends to disappear into holes here and there, as though told in a marijuana haze.

Viewed in the new millennium, The Big Fix unfolds behind two scrims of nostalgia: The one in the story itself, where 60s has-beens, unhappy with how the world has turned, yearn for barricades and love-ins; and the one revealed by the talents who made the movie, where that yearning for the heady days of the counterculture -- Berkeley! Vietnam! Hash brownies! -- has developed its own, peculiarly fusty period flavor.

The fix is in but the plot is broken

[sol-kay · 7/10 · 23 November 2003]

****SOME SPOILERS*****Sharp and feisty movie about ex-1960's radical who's having a hard time making child support payments for his two kids. while trying to support himself as a small time private investigator in LA.

Moses Wine, Richard Dreyfuss, at home one night watching a football game that he bet on is contacted by an old flame back from his radical days in collage Lila, Susan Anspach. Lila wants Moses to work for a candidate for governor of California, Milles Hawthorne. Moses goes along with Lila to the Hawthorne campaign headquarters even though Moses is apposed to his policies as well as having a low opinion of Hawthorne's intellect. "This is a guy who thinks that Captain Kangaroo is too controversial" Moses tells Lila about the person she want's to get elected.

Told by Hawthorne's campaign manager Sam Sebastian, John Lithgow, that there's a flayer being distributed around the state with a doctored photo of Hawthorne and radical Howard Eppis, who's on the lamb from the police since he was convicted for inciting violence against the government. The phony flayer is telling everyone that Eppis is supporting Hawthorne for governor, which is not true, which will destroy Howthorne's chances for being elected and Sabastian want's Moses, a private eye, to find out who's disturbing it.

Moses and Lila go underground in the radical movement to find out who's behind these flayers and this whole Eppis mania. One night Moses goes over to Lila's home for a quite and uneventful dinner dinner and finds her murdered. Moses after overcoming the shock and grief of Lila's tragic death now has a more personal interest in the Hawthorne/Eppis case since he feels that Lila's murder was because of it.

Going on his own Moses starts to make inroads in his search for the elusive Howard Eppis and runs into people who in the past were supporters of Eppis who would now want to break Howard Eppis's neck. A group of radical Mexicans farm workers who's leader Louis Vasqaz, who had mysteriously vanished, felt that Eppis is a phony and an opportunist There's also the very wealthy industrialist Oscar Procari Sr. Fritz Weaver who holds Eppis responsible for his son's conviction for attempting to overthrow the government and flight from the law. This is due his involvement with Eppis in what was called the trial of the California Four.

Later Moses is picked up by the FBI and grilled by them about what he knows about Howard Eppis. It seems that everyone in the state of California wants to know where is Howard Eppis? It comes out later that someone that Moses came in contact with in the movie came up with an hair-brain scheme to blow up a section of the California freeway and blame in on Howard Eppis. This insane plan at the same time will destroy the Hawthorne campaign for governor by making it look like that Eppis was supporting him but who is it? and why was Lila murdered? did she stumble across something that if made public would blow the whole hair-brain scheme?

Richard Dreyfuss was never better then he was in "The Big Fix" With a wonderful supporting cast that carried the story from it's delightful and funny beginning to it's tense and griping final conclusion. And speaking of casts it was hilarious how Moses who was wearing a cast on his right hand, during the entire movie, came up with different reasons when anyone asked him how he broke his hand according to what their political or moral positions were.

You can't fix movies from the 70's. They are what they are.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 27 January 2022]

There is a structure and a mood for most thrillers of the 70s, and if it's a light-hearted comedy, as long as it has a good script with witty lines and memorable characters, it's going to stand the test of time. But when they try to have too many themes and different moods, then they don't hold up as well. "The Big Fix" was a little hit in 1978, and for Richard Dreyfuss, coming off his Oscar-winning role in "The Goodbye Girl" as well as "Close Encounters" made him a hot actor. He basically is playing the same character that he played in "Goodbye Girl", and while he's still wisecracking, he's gone from actor to a private detective, from New York City to Los Angeles. An ex-girlfriend of his, Susan Anspach, involves him in a case concerning an old protest buddy of theirs from the 1960's, Andrew turns into a wild adventure that ends up with murder. As if he doesn't have enough on his plate, ex-wife Bonnie Bedelia keeps harassing him for child support but barely let him see the kids. Boss John Lithgow harasses him and he ends up being chased all over L. A. by some mysterious man and the cops, and he's determined to solve this case as well as come out of it alive.

A great use of vintage Los Angeles locations (not the places that you usually see in Southern California set movies) takes Dreyfuss on too many adventures, and it's interesting to see how much the City of Angels has changed. Rita Karin is very funny as Dreyfuss's outspoken aunt, a Russian Jewish immigrant who has Todd Dreyfus everything he knows about fighting for social injustice and being considered subversive. That's where the plot leads us to, political machinations and other unforeseen twist, with a lot of interesting supporting players and a steady Pace. The first half is a lot funnier than the second half, and going from the mixture of action and comedy to very serious action as the plot comes to its head. F Murray Abraham, Nicolas Coster and Fritz Weaver have good supporting roles. A funny scene in a federal penitentiary has two life term inmates distracting the guards by singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" while they pass information to Anspach and Dreyfuss. There have been better political comedies that have stood the test of time, but Dreyfuss's performance and non-stop activity makes this worth seeing even if it is a bit dated.

Mike Hammer He Ain't

[dougdoepke · 12 November 2008]

Okay, the 30's had Sam Spade, the 40's had Philip Marlowe, and the 50's had Cold War PI, Mike Hammer. So why shouldn't the 60's have its iconic private dick too. His name is Moses Wine. He stands 5-5, wears glasses and exercises on a skateboard. His hard knocks' schooling is courtesy the Berkeley college of street protest and radical rhetoric, where he majored in Pinko Studies and How to Grind Up the Establishment. There are no stacked blondes in his life, only an ex-wife hitting him up for child support and two little boys he takes on cases when he can't find a sitter. He wouldn't know a fedora from a fez, a Lucky Strike from a Pall Mall, or a whiskey and soda from a scotch and water. And instead of bashing evil-doers-- such as people who call him a "liberal"-- he pickets their house. On the other hand, if things get really rough, he can put in a call to the ghetto or the radical underground or even a cop siren when a door gets grease-gunned to death. In short, Moses Wine is Mike Hammer's worst nightmare come true.

In the Big Fix, Wine (Richard Dreyfuss) is on the trail of somebody, it's not always clear who. But it has something to do with sabotaging a political campaign. Turns out it's the campaign of a liberal politician, of all people, but then Wine needs the money, and besides everyone else has trimmed their hair and sold out-- so why shouldn't he. Along the way, he meets some interesting types, like the establishment barracuda (Fritz Weaver), and the movie's versions of Abbie Hoffman (F. Murray Abraham) and maybe the Symbionese Liberation Army's Bill and Emily Harris (Bloch & Grody). But my favorite is his crusty old aunt. She's sort of the stand-in for every old lefty who never gave up the labor fight. Now she spends her time in a Jewish old age home, debating the fine points of anarchist theory and telling touring politicians how things really are. So naturally, when Wine bursts into the opening refrain of the Internationale, we know where the inspiration comes from and, more importantly, where he comes from.

Sure the mystery's about as clear as air quality in downtown LA. So don't expect a tidy wrap-up. But then the great Raymond Chandler figured life doesn't come in tidy packages either. Anyway, don't expect to see this one-of-a-kind at the White House any time soon or even at your local Democratic headquarters. But it is well acted and produced, with a lot of humorous touches and an approach that thankfully never gets heavy- handed. So thanks be to co-producer Dreyfuss for daring to entertain where politically correct Hollywood has long feared to tread.

Dad took us to see it when I was in 4th grade.

[J344R3Y · 7/10 · 26 June 2022]

Dad took us to see it when I was in 4th grade. All I could remember about this movie for 40 years was that it scared me. I couldn't remember who the actors were or the title of the movie. Just bits and pieces that scared me as a kid. When I saw it on streaming, the bits and pieces I remembered scaring me were in this movie, that's when I was overwhelmed with the realization that THIS IS THAT MOVIE!!!

The best post-hip film ever produced

[berrys1178 · 9/10 · 7 June 2005]

The Big Fix is a mystery that does not answer every question that it raises, but it nails the Zeitgeist of the late 60's from a vantage point 10 years later. I have only seen it once, when it first came out and I have looked for it ever since.

The story is slow to develop with Moses Wine (Dreyfuss) having trouble with seemingly every aspect of his life. We learn that he feels displaced in time, and cannot get past the radical time in his life. I and many others have had those same feelings in the 35+ years since.

The sense of confusion and struggle fits exactly the feelings many of us experienced at the time. Taught to respect the police by our Greatest Generation parents, we often found that we were at the top of the police list of suspects for anything from subversion to bad manners and bad dress. The sense of alienation that I felt at the time permeates the viewing. I may have read too much of myself into it; if so, The Big Fix evoked it from my own life.

Best scenes without spoiling the story:

Leon Redbone's "I Wanna Be Seduced" while Moses gets ready for a date with Lila Shay (Anspach).

Moses at the TV station reviewing scenes of past demonstrations; the images are shown projected on his face. No real detail is visible except the tears on his cheeks. Powerful.

The reunion of old friends as they dance around the swimming pool of the house that was built by selling out the old radical values.

Finally, a sense of something incomplete at the end. The mystery solved, but every question not answered. How true to life!

"The '60s are over..."

[moonspinner55 · 3/10 · 15 September 2017]

Roger L. Simon adapted his own novel about how the wonderful/volatile, idealistic 1960s evolved into this cynical age, the corrupt and immoral 1970s. One-time student activist from Berkeley, now a weekend-dad working as a private eye, becomes involved in a case of political dirty pool when the liberal elect for California's governor is falsely implicated in a partnership with a fugitive radical. Star Richard Dreyfuss, one of the top actors at the time (following "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and his Oscar win for 1977's "The Goodbye Girl"), also co-produced this mystery yarn, turning it into a wan and wholly unconvincing actor's showpiece. Sporting a shaggy, curly hairstyle and a thick mustache, Dreyfuss isn't quite at home in these plastic, fake-noir surroundings--he doesn't even try to assimilate himself. Whether he's fighting with his ex-wife or romancing a former girlfriend, the actor is relying on externals and shtick (that of a raffish Jewish snookums) to take the place of a performance, something which director Jeremy Paul Kagan appears to be complicit with. Dulled-out and bland, the picture certainly isn't helped by Bill Conti's obtrusive music, nor by Frank Stanley's muddy cinematography. A minor hit, the film was soon forgotten in the wake of Dreyfuss' Hollywood hot streak hitting a speedbump. *1/2 from ****

An overlooked sleeper with "Noir" overtones

[Jack-196 · 8/10 · 23 April 2002]

Vastly underrated sleeper which could be described as the 60s meet the 40s in the 70s. Never seems to show up on late night TV(and I have 35+ movie channels). Well worth a look if you can find it. And whatever happened to Susan Anspach? She deserved more of a career

Dreyfuss is good but the movie isn't.

[pmtelefon · 5/10 · 12 August 2019]

I am a fan of the 1970s semi-genre of throw-back style detective movies. My favorites are Robert Benton's "The Late Show" and Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye". "The Big Fix" doesn't come close to those films. It's watchable but only barely. Richard Dreyfuss does a nice job but the story is weak and uninteresting. Dreyfuss' character is strong but he's surrounded by a bunch of bland or unnecessary supporting characters. "The Big Fix" does have a few nice moments but not enough to make it worth while. Dishonorable mention: the annoying Aunt.

Maintaining our civil rights is an everyday struggle. If you give up, all dreams die!

[etherdog · 9/10 · 7 August 2002]

This is the best movie Richard Dreyfus has been in. Corruption and dirty tricks in a senatorial campaign directed by John Lithgow, an Abbie Hoffman character played by F. Murray Abraham, not a little comedy and a heaping of social commentary a la 60's style make this a highly recommended movie. I hope it comes out on DVD soon.

What 60's / 70's Druggy Hooey!

[tillzen · 3/10 · 7 November 2008]

I saw this film when I was 18, and at 51 I realize what a dope I was. This is sloppy 70's film-making at its WORST. Dreyfus is (like the entire film) using cutesy shorthand in lieu of acting. One need only look at the constant continuity errors to realize that everybody must have been either high, or thought making a quality film was too bourgeois. I "got" the 60's. I was a teen in the 70's, and "The Big Fix" is typical of the hipster coding that allowed the excesses that typified Richard Dreyfus "the drug years". What was well written wisenheimer dialog in "Jaws" and "The Good-Bye Girl" is here reduced to winging it, and the wires of laziness clearly show the puppet to be merely in motion; mimicking performance. What a silly, and disingenuous waste of time this film still is!

Lived through the moment, love this movie

[marzgold · 8/10 · 4 February 2014]

This movie and John Sayles's "The Return of the Secaucus Seven" are the best movies I know about the post-hippie years.

"The Big Fix" is funny, fast, and smart -- and also touching. The scenes of the old activists in jail and around the swimming pool are touched with aching nostalgia. Richard Dreyfuss plays an adorable, idealistic nebbish who really thought the future was going to hold more than EST trainers and deteriorating VW Beetles. I think it's his best performance (though "Inserts" was also fine).

I have read the book on which this was based, and it is not only nothing like the movie but considerably worse than the movie. This is one case ("Roger Rabbit" is another) in which the Hollywood rewrite was a noticeable improvement over the original.

*What happened to the soccer coach?

[Aristides-2 · 1/10 · 22 April 2008]

Summary is a small point but typical of this poorly thought out script/story. *When Wine knocks on Eppis's door he's shown in because he's mistaken for a soccer coach who's there to instruct Eppis' young son. Sometime later, the world's worst hit men show up, but Eppis' kid is still there. What happened to the soccer coach?

World's worst hit men? It's daylight in an upscale California suburb but without any inquiry the two "pro" killers start machine gunning......the outside of the house with no one in sight!

Speaking of Eppis, he's being sought for serious crimes committed during *the sixties but is a flamboyant and successful ad man or publicist, hardly a good cover for someone of his notoriety. Oh yes, Eppis is seen, multiple times, in news footage of perhaps no longer than ten years previously. Then he looked a bit like Geraldo Rivera. Well, since in 1974 (the time of the movie, which one character sets by saying, 'I haven't seen so-and-so in six years,since back in '68', Eppis is played by Murray Abraham, he not only must have had plastic surgery, but cranial surgery as well; he doesn't remotely resemble his earlier (and shown) self.

We also have Sam, the campaign manager, very public, very visible, Procari, Jr.(John Lithgow), the son of the wicked, super wealthy, super right wing, Procari, Sr. (Fritz Weaver), who a few years earlier had bankrolled a radical group who apparently committed crimes of such enormity that two their members are in prison for life, no parole. Well, doesn't someone, anyone, recognize the long missing (suposedly) Sam, Procari, Jr.? And speaking of being sent to prison for life, how does Eppis, shown in Federal custody in the sixties and found guilty at the same time as the others, escape being sent to prison? This is never dealt with nor explained.

Wine's two young children are given dialog that no child this side of Hollywood would ever think of saying and the scenes with them and Wine make one reach for one's pistol.

Finally, though there's so much more false and bad in the movie to be mentioned, the main evil second banana, Pak Chung (?), is shown operating an extremely sophisticated remote electronic guidance system that allows him to drive, at a great distance, a van loaded with explosives. When confronted by Wine, known to Chung as a private detective whose once- again girlfriend his group has beaten to death.....confronted with an obviously angered Wine, with a gun drawn, this clever rascal MAKES A CLUMSY MOVE TO ATTACK AND IS SHOT TO DEATH!. What a truly poorly written, ugly movie.

Another hit for Dreyfus

[tinman-7 · 9/10 · 27 January 1999]

An excellent film for Dreyfus. At this point (1978), the best known films with Dreyfus were "American Graffiti"(1973), "Jaws"(1975), "The Goodbye Girl"(1976) and "Close Encounters"(1977). Dreyfus did a great job inviting the viewer in and sharing his (Moses Wine's) feelings about the late 60's and its effects on the students at Univ of California Berkley. Wine wanders aimlessly to find out who is pitting various ethnic and political groups, etc. against each other. He does not find out who the true enemy is until the end of the movie. You won't either. John Lithgow also appears in one of his first films. Look for Mandy Patinkin as the pool cleaner. F. Murray Abraham and Susan Anspach also star.

Outdated seventies movie, lacking suspense, lacking drama, but full of corny seventies music, cheap photography and an unbelievable story. Richard Dreyfuss saves it. Barely...

[imseeg · 4/10 · 6 July 2019]

In my quest to watch all the older Richard Dreyfuss movies I stumbled upon this one. Wish I hadnt, because it is boring, outdated and not credible. It is basically a cheap seventies tv movie, released for the cinemas.

Not that it is terribly bad. It isnt, but it just becomes tedious to watch after half an hour when I realise there isnt gonna be ANY real drama, there isnt gonna be ANY real suspense. Richard Dreyfuss acts well. He does save this tv movie from drowning. Let's forget I ever saw it.

The story for those still interested: private investigator Richard Dreyfuss starts searching for someone who is threatening a politician. With a lot of divorce talk mixed in between, because that is what they thought was kinda special in the seventies. Mixing boring ex-wife alimony talk with private eye work does NOT rock my boat though.

Private ... Eye(s)

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 3 October 2021]

This is not your usual detective story. It also is not your typical conspiracy political thriller either. So I understand if people have their issues with how the movie was made and with the pace it has. But if you like the craziness and down to earth performance by the cast (especially Richard Dreyfuss, Richard being a name that can has a nickname that might remind one of a slang word for detective - just as a side note) ... well you are on to a good start.

Talking of starts, the movie does start with our main character on a stakeout. And he acts a bit childish one might say ... not a wrong observation. While there adult themes and there is a real story to his broken wrist/hand, many things are utilized for the story or the characters purposes.

Not a masterpiece I reckon - but still a very well made movie to say the least. And tension filled from start to finish ... even if it feels a bit uneven.

Worst movie ever

[balzakschlemp · 1/10 · 11 October 2012]

Saw this in the theatre back when it was first released. In a nutshell, my problem with this film is that the entire plot is revealed in the first five minutes with nothing else to show for it. Of course, this was not understood as the film unfolds, so the rest of the hour and a half you're anticipating that something significant, or even interesting, is about to happen, and it never does. Only when the credits start rolling does it become clear that you just wasted an hour and a half of your life. I'm quite certain that I've invested more emotional capital in this film writing this review than anyone involved in making it. Just a crappy film.

Smart movie that doesn't try to be.

[dlynch843 · 8/10 · 19 July 2020]

In 1983, after I saw the disappointing 'The Big Chill', I thought back to 1978 when I saw 'The Big Fix', and thought how much better the latter expressed the feeling of lost idealism from the late 60s --10 years later. Dreyfuss plays a private investigator named Moses Wine---a great name. The mystery isn't all that great, but when Moses views old footage of the radical 60s, tears well up --- and I realized that the more successful and overly praised 'The Big Chill' didn't come close to the feeling of lost hope among people who lived the 60s. So see The Big Fix instead---if you can find it.

Could not make it through

[mikeyzmpz-82588 · 2/10 · 3 September 2021]

It starts off with good writing that is witty and relevant. Halfway through I was still not sure what the movie was really about. By the time I turned it off, I would say it was a political movie that dabbled in mystery but could not have been less intriguing. No leads, in my opinion, were really followed. The main character just goes from one thing to the next accomplishing nothing and leaving me confused.

Good Stuff

[darbski · 10/10 · 17 September 2017]

**SPOILERS** a lot of neat references to some of the things that news reportage as part of the Sixty's radical anti-government left action groups. Starts out as a light-hearted look at a smart private detective who's career is exactly Jake Gittis'. Dreyfus plays this part very well. Susan Anspach is a former crush whose murder changed Wine (Dreyfus) into a guy who's more than a little P.O.ed at authority, the government, the me-generation ex-hippie phonies that his ex-wife is being seduced by, and, mostly whoever killed his girl. He has to deal with all of it, and one really good scene was when he was in a prison where a brother and sister radical are in for (I believe) killing a cop in an explosion)., When Wine, asks how long they are in for, he is told "forever". When he is interviewed by the F.B.I., he sees how they have surveilled him deeply, and how they didn't care about and were disdainful of Lila, (Anspach).

He verbally levels their Karma, and sets out again on his quest. He discovers what he must, tracks down the bad guy, and exacts revenge; disguised as self defense. It was neatly done. I've read the negative reviews, and I disagree. I think it is a very good movie; alternately fun and serious, with a good ending, and a character who is a good guy. These days, are there ANY good guys out there? DVDs are available, but they are expensive, so if you can get it, well... Okay. I stand corrected by myself. By God, just had the thought to find out if Amazon was gonna re-release it; they have. I ordered it. You might wanna too...

Excellent private eye yarn

[myriamlenys · 9/10 · 3 April 2024]

In "The big fix", a private investigator meets with a former girlfriend who offers him a job. What looks like a middle-of-the-road investigation into political dirty tricks soon morphs into something far more dangerous. "The big fix" is a private eye detective tale mixed with a healthy dose of comedy and satire. The movie is notable mainly for the quality of its lead performance and for the portrayal of a particular social environment, to wit the environment inhabited by former members of the counter-cultural underground.

The movie describes the various ways in which ardent activists respond to the progress of time and to changes in the political and societal climate. Some of the activists react by embracing their ideology with greater determination than ever before, while others go for some kind of compromise or even for a full-throated adoption of a once-despised lifestyle. Yet others escape in superficiality, nostalgia or drug-induced oblivion.

In a way "The big fix" is also a movie about growing up. It's not difficult to be a revolutionary if one's eighteen or twenty years old ; but it takes some doing to hang on to the holy fire in the face of realities like nine-to-five jobs, mortgages, commutes and résumés. By the same token it is hard to concentrate on one's ideas and ideals if one spends a considerable part of one's day caring for a family. Somehow long discussions about the intellectual dynamic between Marx and Engels tend to combine badly with urgent requests to tell the bedtime story about Nibbles the Naughty Rabbit, AGAIN daddy, AGAIN AGAIN ! (Note the way in which our protagonist gets saddled, time after time, with the care for his young sons.)

Anyway, I recommend "The big fix". The version I watched was of an exceptional quality with regard to image sharpness.