…Caine clearly relishes playing an out-and-out rotter…for star fans, and that should include almost everyone, A Shock to the System’s quirky black comedy is certainly worth seeking out…

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 27, 2024

Elizabeth McGovern is so charming as Caine's lover that the ending becomes unintentionally disconcerting, if not downright disappointing. But there are many worse ways of spending 90 minutes.

| Oct 17, 2023

A thoroughly amoral, wickedly funny and very black comedy-thriller, with some sharp scenes on cut-throat office politics.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 17, 2023

A deceptively small, wickedly funny black comedy.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 9, 2023

Deep down, its system is not as shocking as it believes. [Full review in Spanish]

| Dec 1, 2022

What's remarkable is that you come away from the movie laughing at Graham's murderous indiscretions and yet you're frightened by them too. Caine makes you taste the ashes in this black comedy.

| Apr 9, 2021

What might have seemed bafflingly inconsistent behavior in the hands of a lesser performer is here synthesized by Caine's relaxed and subtle work into a more complex characterization.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 9, 2021

Sleek and brimming with giddy cruelty, A Shock to the System has more unexpected turns and twists than the hedge labyrinth in The Shining.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 9, 2021

There's a lot going for this picture, aside from Caine's winning performance.

| Apr 9, 2021

Egleson and Klavan know exactly what their themes are, and they've got the guts and brains to carry them through. Besides, whenever their efforts flag, Michael Caine's exceptional performance is always a compensation.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 9, 2021

A thriller should make an audience sit on the edge of its collective seat, waiting tensely for the next moment of action. "A Shock to the System" brings a reaction of "So what," far too early and far too often.

| Apr 9, 2021

Early on the film has some novel observant moments, but they stop coming once the bodies start mounting.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 9, 2021

It's "How to Succeed in Business" with a vengeance -- a wickedly entertaining black diamond of a satire that reminds us how unobtrusively, elegantly, economically and sympathetically Came can inhabit a character when he's in top form.

| Apr 9, 2021

A whiny little brat of a film.

| Apr 9, 2021

This is supposed to be a black comedy, but a lot of fancy footwork with camera close-ups aid musical drollery with a double bass do little to compensate for the thoroughly flat script.

| Apr 9, 2021

A Shock to the System lacks the stylish camera moves that Hitchcock used to pull you into the hero's point of view. But, startlingly, Caine's performance compensates.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 9, 2021

An expert, enjoyable comedy-thriller, giving Michael Caine the chance to remind us that there is nobody with a surer touch when it comes to maximising the potential of a sardonic script.

| Apr 9, 2021

...a misguided (and rather misbegotten) adaptation of Brett's superior book.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 11, 2021

The movie is juicy fun, a high comedy about the personality of power.

| Original Score: A | Nov 6, 2009

A brilliantly modulated, witty and nasty black comedy.

| Original Score: A | Apr 21, 2007