Beatty's a pro football player who is mistakenly taken to heaven early by a rookie angel (Buck Henry). Together with the rookie angel's boss (James Mason), the three travel back to Earth to find Beatty a suitable replacement body, landing on an eccentric conservative millionaire who is on the verge of being murdered by his wife (Dyan Cannon) and his traitorous assistant (Charles Grodin) who are having an affair.
Beatty is a more liberal guy, so when he realizes the new body he inhabits runs a corporation committing all kinds of evil, he does his best to change things for the better, if not necessarily for ideological reasons so much as a naïve, but positive, world view. It helps that he also has a crush on one of the biggest proponents of these causes, played by Julie Christie.
The rest of the plot involves Beatty's attempts to get back into football shape so he can live his dream of going to the Super Bowl, enlisting his old trainer (Jack Warden) to help, and doing surprisingly well, until fate intervenes. Luckily fate intervenes again, and the love story with Christie, the murder plot with Cannon and Grodin, and the football plot with Beatty all come together in a bittersweet but still heartwarming conclusion.
Beatty's an interesting actor because he could easily play aloof, handsome dudes who have the world handed to them and don't have time for anyone else. Instead, he tends to play against type, infusing otherwise handsome, gifted and privileged characters with a level of sincerity and even goofiness that is rare among leading men. You can see it in the way this character loves to play his saxophone – badly.
No comments:
Post a Comment