Review: The Big Fix
Blu-ray: The Big Fix (1978)
The Big Fix is one of those late 1970s political/detective stories that are… you know… ‘quirky’ and… 1970s. Hmmm.
Directed by Jeremy Kagan and based on the novel by Roger Simon (who also did the screen writing), it stars Richard Dreyfuss as ‘Quirky’ (oh there’s that word again) private detective Moses Wine (there’s a lot of Jewish jokes in this film) who was once a radical, Vietnam war hating student, but has now grown into a private investigator.
He is contacted by Lila (Susan Anspach), his girlfriend from his college days, who’s working in the election campaign for Miles Hawthorne, a politician who is running to be Governor of California. She’s concerned about a fake campaign flyer supposedly showing former infamous college radical, and now disappeared Howard Eppis who was one of the ‘gang of four’ who were arrested for terrorism together with Hawthorne and endorsing him.
Knowing that Moses was friends with Eppis in college, Lila and her boss Sam (John Lithgow) hires him to find out if Eppis is behind it.
As you can see, it’s already complicated, and as more characters appear, I started to grow a little weary of the quirkiness and my attention lapsed making me wonder who some of the people were.
It’s entertaining enough, but Richard Dreyfuss tended to play the exact same role during this period (Jewish, quirky, short) so you sort of know what you’re going to get. Dragging his kids with him everywhere as his wife ‘finds herself’, Dreyfuss bounces from situation to situation always retaining his …quirkiness.
INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES
- High Definition remaster
- Original mono audio
- Audio commentary with Little White Lies editor David Jenkins (2021)
- The Big Self (2021, 23 mins): director Jeremy Paul Kagan discusses his early career as a filmmaker
- The Crime in Mind (2021, 8 mins): screenwriter Roger L Simon recalls the origins of The Big Fix and the process of translating his novel to the big screen
- Archival TV Interview with Richard Dreyfuss (1978, 5 mins): the actor and producer in conversation with Bobbie Wygant
- Archival TV Interview with Jeremy Paul Kagan, Roger L Simon and Carl Borack (1978, 7 mins): the director, writer and producer chat with Wygant
- Original theatrical trailer
- TV spot
- Radio spots
- Image galleries: promotional and publicity material
- New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- Limited edition exclusive 32-page booklet with a new essay by Andrew Nette, an introduction by Richard Dreyfuss, archival interviews with Jeremy Paul Kagan and costume designer Edith Head, an overview of critical responses, and film credits
- UK premiere on Blu-ray
- Limited edition of 3,000 copies
The Big Fix is released 26th July 2021.
Review by Tina from a disc kindly supplied by Powerhouse Films.