The Survivors (1983)

How sad is this?

Good movie but grossly overrated

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Young upper management executive Donald (Williams) gets canned as part of a restructuring. With his mind occupied by he quite accidentally leaves a sizable gasoline spill outside a petrol station/auto shop just before its crotchety old proprietor Sonny (Mathau) tosses a stale cancer stick. After that Sonny no longer owns a petrol station/auto shop. Neither man really sees the other or knows what really happened.These suddenly desperate sadsacks converge on the local unemployment office whilst Jack (Reed) - one other more desperate yet decidedly more volatile individual is also there. At a nearby diner, while Donald and Sonny are sulking after a miserable day at the mercy of the federal bureaucracy, Jack shows up with a loaded gun and tries to rob the place. Jack has been pushed too far which results in his pushing Donald and Sonny too far. They foil the robbery but Donald is shot. Jack easily orchestrates his getaway.Becoming cause celebres for their daring good in the incident will doesn't help Donald or Sonny. The media ridicules them. Worse, Jack gets their names from the news reports and goes hunting after them as Sonny struggles through odd jobs and Donald alienates his fiancé by going to live at a survivalist camp. Tracking Donald to the camp by threatening Sonny, Jack is determined to finally silence both of the odd couple friends. Donald - exhilarated by the whole experience craves a final confrontation.The film starts quite well to hook the viewer but most of the truly funny material is to be found at the beginning. By the middle it lags and lingers as gaping plot holes remain. The final thirty minutes are mostly unwatchable in the run-up to a nonsensical conclusion. They appeared to be looking for absolutely anything with which they could fashion a satisfactory conclusion for the final cut.

When you come across one of those moments in life when you really need to catch hold of a spark of brilliance you should hold onto it and glow warmly in its presence. This film is one of those moments. It sparks and creates a wonderful mix of tragic characters interacting in a modern world, confused and not sure about their place, shattered by stupid events that happen around them to place them together. Robin Williams decent into understandable weakness provides cream for your coffee – sacked by a parrot, driving the same car as all his fellow corporate colleagues he blunders into a world he only read about and slipped and scrawled crashing into a frightened world where the big cesspool awaits. Walter in a parallel world falls lower and lower creating empathic moments trying to get by in a simple world where his daughter strolls in his shadow in adolescence. This film contains some superb dialogue and creative comedy that charm the watcher. Robin is sublime and Walter makes sense where there is none. Jack is colossal as a nemesis and indefatigable in his pursuit until his humanity appears on the floor of a wood cabin when all the characters come together. Do not listen to those who believe this is poor, they have not watched and wondered at the connections. Brilliance and eclectic!

I've seen this movie dozens of times, mostly because of some of the funniest dialogue ever written, and mostly when I was younger and the uneven story, problematic direction and distracting editing were more easily over-looked. Rewatching it tonight, I can still see a good movie in there, somewhere, but the uneven bits and long stretches of not-funny really stand out. In particular, the very last five minutes of the film ruin the rest; a bit like heartburn or food poisoning after a tasty meal.Someone should remake this movie. It would be a shame for the great moments of dialogue to be lost gems within this average and uneven whole.

The Survivors is not one of Robin Williams' best films, but it is worth watching, and thinking about. The beginning keeps you guessing about what kind of film it is - Robin Williams' character, Donald, is fired from his job, and we have a few comments about the Social Security system. Then suddenly he foils a robbery, together with Walter Matthau (Sonny).The two characters go in different directions - Sonny tries to make a deal with the robber to leave them alone, while Donald goes to Vermont to join a survivalist community. Each try to deal with the villain in their own way.The film suffers from sentimentality and moralism, like most of Williams' films, but it has humour and a good insight into the paranoia of American society.