Pussytiddy The cast play this movie as a camp comedy....the main plot line that a crooked would be secret government are using subliminal messages in TV ads to sway elections could make for a fine straight political thriller. Agency isn't played as a gripping thriller but it comes across that the cast were having a ball...especially Bob Mitchum as comic book baddie. Lee Majors is okay as 'the hero'. He has his comic moments as he escapes from Mitchum's goofy henchmen...villains straight out of Batman!Saul Rubinek almost steals the film from under Majors and Mitchum's noses...but his witty cat loving character, Goldstein just isn't in the thing long enough. Valerie Perrine as Lee Majors' love interest is pretty much a throw away part. Meanwhile, Alexandra Stewart just exudes a cool Teutonic type beauty...it's noticeable that her character is seen getting on a private jet with the man who was obviously Mitchum's boss/paymaster...as if she was planted at the ad agency to keep an eye on Mitchum. It also left a way open for a sequel! The quality of the print for my DVD was just awful...it seems that no decent print survives and though some might say "Good!!" I think it's a shame because this cheesy and cheap Canadian flick is not so bad as long as you don't expect a stellar movie...this was obviously not a film to boost any actor's reputation, merely to pay the rent check, played with tongue firmly in cheek...

midge56 I was actually being quite generous with the stars on this one. The quality of this video was really about 2 stars, but the original author and actors deserved better than that.Spoilers! So don't read further unless you want to know what the movie was about.A much better movie with a similar theme would be "Looker" with Susan Dey. Both movies are about subliminal messages in TV advertising with murders and subterfuge.They had a good idea with this story. I'm sure the original author was mortified when he saw what was done with his story. Even with Mitchum and Majors, this director, producer and film crew managed to destroy this movie. It could have been quite good but I was in shocked disbelief from the moment the movie started until the very end.I strongly suspect that Mitchum and Majors had no idea how bad this movie was going to turn out until after it was processed. I'm sure they were both horrified with the results. It wasn't their fault. It might have been a good movie with a completely different film crew and film executives.Bad sound; bad script & screen writing; bad directing; bad lighting; bad camera work; bad video quality; bad transfer; bad dialogue...The screen writing was a disaster. When it started out with that "no sweat" commercial in demonic attire... I actually grabbed the DVD box because I thought it was some kind of drag p0rn0 based on the opening scene. I somehow pictured the entire theater emptying out with this scene. There was no excuse for the way this script was written and laid out.I'm not sure they used a script for this movie. I think they just decided on a scene the night before and handed out the dialogue just before each shot. I really felt sorry for the actors. They really did their best. From the sound, there was obviously no "voice over" to clean up the sound of the dialogue, what little there was of it.Bad directing of the worst kind. I really mean this quite literally when I say a high school kid could have done a better job with a hand held camera in their garage. A 12 year old could have done better... and I'm not sure where the producer was hiding out while all of this was taking place.The sound quality was so terrible and distorted, we could have used a cassette recorder in a purse and done a better job with the sound. It was painful just to attempt to listen to this butchered, difficult to understand sound track. It was muffled, distorted and constantly fluctuating.The video and lighting were terrible. It was dark. The quality was worse than a 1950's TV show. There was no semblance of professional lighting. I mean this quite literally. I'm not being unkind. The cameras looked like old hand-held 1960's TV cameras which required extremely bright, hot lights to obtain a decent image.When there was something to see... such as the suicide in the refrigerator... the director did not have the camera stay on it long enough for you to absorb what you were seeing. But the ridiculous notion that someone would have killed himself by clearing out the refrigerator, cramming inside, then leaving a note was dumb enough. But the added disbelief that the police detectives didn't see anything suspicious about the situation was simply too much to bear.Then we had the same "suicide" victim leave a reel to reel recording of about 6 scenes of the movie... really sounded more like something we would expect to hear from a director on planning out scenes to be filmed and then ran out of money. So, instead of filming the scenes, they had this character record the details of what was going on at the Ad Agency as if he had tracked down the entire plot of the movie. We also could not understand half of what he was saying due to the bad soundtrack. A cheap way to do half of the movie without filming it.As for the graphics on the subliminal messages in the commercials, the core plot of the movie, it was so childish, nightmarish and filled with ridiculous roars and distorted sound… not to mention "crayon style animations" (no kidding), I could not believe my eyes.If you watch the movie "Looker" you will see a much better rendition of subliminal messaging. "Agency" had the right idea... but did not have a film or production crew who could do this movie in a professional manner.I did appreciate the story the original author was trying to tell. And I did enjoy the efforts of the actors. I watched the movie for their sake... and I felt really bad for how they must have felt when they saw the finished product. I honestly don't know how this movie was ever printed and distributed for public consumption.If you have a choice... watch "Looker" instead. You will enjoy that movie. It was well done and had a similar theme with much better special effects. However, if you are intent on watching this movie, "Agency" then I would recommend having a couple drinks to wash it down. It is watchable if you can tolerate the terrible soundtrack and bad lighting.I would like to extend my apologies to the actors, their families and the original author of this story. If the movie had been handled by a different film company, crew, director & producer... and a better DVD transfer company... I think it could have been a good movie. It could certainly be remade into a very enjoyable movie but that would never make up for the duress the actors and the writer must have endured at the hands of this director and production company when they saw the final product.

junk-monkey There's a not bad little thriller here trying to get out, unfortunately the leads aren't strong enough. Perrine is just awful and Majors is adequate but just not good enough, all through it I kept thinking 'this an Elliot Gould part'. The 'secret' that people are willing to kill for is so blindingly obvious from about the third edit into the film. There are a couple of nice moments (which I will not spoil for you) but be warned, it does contain the cat jumping out cliché.I will be grateful to this film for one thing though. About half-way through I cottoned on to one of those weirdnesses that has bugged me for years about so many of the odd little thriller type films of this period. Why are they always seem to be set at Christmas? In this movie there is only one little touch of Christmas but it was enough for the penny to drop. There is a scene in a mall in which Perrine character escapes from the bad guys by pretending to be heavily pregnant and falling to the floor, one of the people who rush to help her, and get in the baddies' way, is wearing a Santa suit. That's it, the only mention, or hint of Christmas in the whole thing - but it was enough. This film was shot in Canada and it was snowing, and all the extras in street scenes are wearing heavy winter clothing! In Hollywoodland Snow = Christmas. Doh!

Oliver Lenhardt AGENCY is another of those Canadian-made pictures posing as an American film, replete with big-name U.S. actors, and featuring Montreal unconvincingly standing in for Washington, D.C.With a premise that is more intriguing and timely now than ever - subliminal messages in TV ads - one would have wished for a sincere, thoughtful approach. Instead, the wretched script is awash with bad dialogue and, in the second half, silly corporate intrigue scenes involving Lee Majors slinking about the ad agency at night, trying to get to the bottom of boss Robert Mitchum's nefarious political machinations. Mitchum's henchmen are so laughable-looking and inept that they appear to have been recruited straight from a Pink Panther film. Parts of the film border on outright comedy.Still, the film is not completely without merit. The first half is promising; Majors makes an affable protagonist; Saul Rubinek is quite good as the harried eccentric who first discovers Mitchum's conspiracy (although his open contempt of his boss makes his continued employment at the agency another implausible factor). Valerie Perrine, however, appears in an entirely disposable role as the obligatory concerned wife.Finally, all production elements are professional, and AGENCY at least turns out to be a diverting, if daft and disappointing, thriller. I was not bored.