THE END (1978)
Label: MGM
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 100 Minutes 43 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Detector: Burt Reynolds
Cast: Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Sally Field, Strother Martin, David Steinberg, Joanne Woodward, Norman Fell, Myrna Loy, Kristy McNichol, Pat O'Brien, Robby Benson, Carl Reiner, Louise LeTourneau, Bill Ewing, Robert Rothwell, Harry Caesar, James Best, Peter Gonzales, Connie Fleming, Janice Carroll, Ken Johnson, Frank McRae, Alfie Wise, Jerry Fujikawa, Jock Mahoney, Patrick Moody, Carolyn Martin, Queenie Smith, Jean Ann Coulter
The End (1978) is a madcap late-70s comedy about suicide, directed by Burt Reynolds (Cannonball Run II) who also stars, playing crooked real estate salesman Wendell Sonny Lawson who at the top of the film is diagnosed with a fatal blood disease by Dr. Samuel Krugman (Norman Fell, The Boneyard). Rather than wait until he is more ill and wracked by pain he decides he would rather take matters into his own hands and kill himself first. Before he does that he sets about visiting with his former lovers, friends, and family, most of whom are too involved to give him the sympathy he is looking for. Among them is his ex-wife Jessica (Joanne Woodward, Rachel, Rachel), teen daughter Julie (Kristy McNichol, Little Darlings), current girlfriend Mary (Sally Field, Steel Magnolias), his lawyer pal Marty (David Steinberg, Going Beserk), and his parents Maureen (Myrna Loy (The Mask of Fu-Manchu) and Ben (Pat O'Brien, The Boy with Green Hair). At one point he goes to church to confess his sins so he can die with a clean conscious, but the only available priest is the too Father Dave (Robbie Benson, Jeremy), who is more interested in the sordid detail of his sexual conquests than any sort of poignant soul-cleansing.
After mulling over myriad ways to off himself he ends up swallows a bottle of pills to end, deciding it would be painless, which is only temporarily derailed when he tried wash them down with what turns out to be sour milk. The attempt is unsuccessful and he wakes up in a loony bin beside the demented Marlon (Dom DeLuise, Haunted Honeymoon), a paranoid schizophrenic who is eager to help Sonny finally succeed. While at the asylum Wendell attempts to crush his head in a hospital bed, falling from atop a tower, and hanging, and eventually when none of that works he and Marlon escape, and he makes his way back to his girlfriend Mary's place, looking for his gun, where he temporality is sidetracks from suicide after being distracted by her poor housekeeping abilities, before deciding to down himself in the ocean.
A played for laughs comedy about suicide and self-harm would probably not get made these days, and I am sure it seemed a bit off-putting even then, though it was also mined for humor in other flicks both before and after like Harold and Maude, Better Off Dead, and The Royal Tenenbaums, so it's not unheard of, but it seems improbable these days. The premise is dark, but played for laughs, but thanks to Reynolds' undeniable charisma and rascally charm it somehow manages to be both funny, touching and at times surprisingly deep, especially moments of self examination and his scenes with his daughter when he expresses regret at being an absent father. Another scene that made me laugh is that off Wendell swimming into the ocean and having second thoughts, having a conversation with God, begging him to save his life and promising to change his ways, even offering to give a percentage of his earnings to the Church, the percentage starting at an "unheard of" 50%, but as he nears the shore the percentage keeps dwindling down, love it.
The film was only the second film Reynold directed, the first being Gator (1976), this flick re-teamed Reynolds with Sally Fields, the air having appeared in several films already and marked his first pairing Dom DeLuis, and it would be the first of many. Plus we get some terrific cameos from Hollywood icon Mirna Loy, James Best, best known a Rosco P. Coltrane from TVs The Dukes of Hazard, and both Strother Martin (The Brotherhood of Satan) and Carl Reiner appears as doctors. If you're a fan of farcical humor, black though it may be in this instance, there's plenty of non-PC fun to be had, even though I don't think it quite "works" as a film it is nonetheless an entertaining slice of comedy, and an interesting curio from Reynold's catalog, well worth checking out.
Audio/Video: The End (1978) arrives on Blu-ray from MGM, presented in 1080p HD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. The source looks great, grain is nicely resolved, the warm colors are pleasing, and texture and fine detail looks solid. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo with optional English subtitles. There are no extras on the disc, just the film and a static menu with subtitle options. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork.
Special Features:
- None
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Screenshots from the MGM Blu-ray:
