Best Seller (1987)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Larry Cohen
Directed by John Flynn
Starring Brian Dennehy and James Woods

Features:

• Theatrical trailer
  
• English, French, and Spanish language tracks
  
• English, French, and Spanish subtitles
  
• Dual-sided disc with standard fullscreen and widescreen versions of the feature
  

Rating: R

Anamorphic: Yes

My Advice: My advice: Don't bother. It's 95 minutes you can't get back.

Dennis Meechum (Dennehy) is a long-time veteran of the LAPD. But when a group of men wearing Richard Nixon masks raid the police evidence depository, his experience can't help his fellow officers. Left for dead after a valiant attempt to fight off one of the felons, he eventually recovers and resumes his duties as an officer. But the experience gave him fodder for a writing career, and he is now a well-known crime author as well as a cop. But publishers are getting anxious about his blown deadlines, and he's hit a serious bout of writer's block.

So when a mysterious man named Cleve (Woods) approaches Meechum and tells him he can help produce a guaranteed best seller, Meechum's interest is piqued. But Cleve's story is hard to swallow. Namely, he says that he has, for years, been the designated corporate assassin for Kappa International, a powerful corporation run by one of the most wealthy men in the world, David Madlock. Cleve persists, producing mounting evidence that his claims are absolutely true, and Meechum finds himself torn between sticking it out and writing the book, which he desperately needs, and arresting Cleve for his multiple murder confessions. The issue becomes even more complicated when he learns that Cleve was the man that shot him years ago during the depository robbery.

As the two dig deeper and deeper into Cleve's murderous past, his former employer takes a mounting interest in the book project, and attempts to dissuade Meechum. Failing that, he sends his goons to make several attempts on Meechum's life. It is only through Cleve's assistance that the author manages to survive the repeated attacks long enough to write the book. But then when Madlock kidnaps Meechum's daughter, he and Cleve must confront the ruthless businessman and attempt to rescue her.

As thrillers go, Best Seller is not particularly thrilling. Dennehy and Woods do well enough, but the plot is essentially a boiled-down generic story from the revenge genre. Assassin wants to get even with boss, boss tries to kill assassin, innocents get mixed up in the middle, and outside help gets called in. Nothing new under the sun. It's a shame, really, because Woods is excellent as the amoral shooter, and Dennehy is excellent as, well, the Brian Dennehy Character^TM. The story is simply too predictable, too familiar, and has no particular twists or turns to make it unique. There's the vague feeling that everybody involved in the project was just "phoning it in," and as a result there's no real spark to make the movie stand out. But there's also not really anything patently bad about the movie, either. It's just there.

The DVD, likewise, is just there. The disc is dual-sided, in case you happen to be one of those throwbacks that prefers full-frame pan-n-scan to an actual widescreen presentation. The picture looks decent, but I don't think anybody went out of their way to remaster or touch up the original film stock, so it's hardly a perfect video transfer. Audio is mono only. And unless you're the type that gets very excited by theatrical trailers, there are no features to speak of at all. Not that I can blame anybody for not dumping more time and money into extras for a forgotten byproduct of the late 80's Hollywood scene.

I can't imagine any solid reason to buy the disc, and rental seems equally unsound. If you know somebody that's already shelled out for this thing, borrow it some weekend when you've watched all your own discs a few dozen times just for variety's sake. Otherwise, skip Best Seller, because it certainly doesn't live up to its name.