The End

By Marshall Fine

Burt Reynolds directed and stars in this dark comedy, which suffers from diminishing returns the longer it goes on. He plays a fellow who discovers that he has a terminal illness and wants to spare himself and everyone he knows the seemingly unavoidable end of a painful malady. So he decides to kill himself. But he proves surprisingly inept at it and after several tries winds up in a mental hospital, where he meets a cheerfully homicidal inmate (Dom DeLuise). The suicide stuff was handled more imaginatively and with greater flair in Harold and Maude; the film has very few real jokes and only comes to life twice: when Burt tries to confess to an easily impressed young priest (Robby Benson) and when the lunatic DeLuise is onscreen.

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