The End

A tasteless and overripe comedy that disintegrates very early into hysterical, undisciplined hamming.

An engaging attempt to take the piss out of the crocodile tears that have been gleefully exploited since Love Story.

This is half-heartedly satiric material that's been directed by Mr. Reynolds as if it were broad, knock-about comedy sometimes and, at other times, as if it were meant to evoke pathos, which it never does.

At the time of its release, some critics trashed the film as tasteless since it dared to suggest laughs could be obtained from the topics of death and suicide. That’s not the problem with the picture.

While it's hardly "Harold & Maude" and too much of the back half is given over to Dom DeLuise's mugging, Burt Reynolds' "The End" is also generally more sedate, subtle and somber than its silly poster art would suggest.

The End, in flagrant negation of its title, does not end. It ends up nowhere. [Full review in Spanish]

So what's wrong? Practically everything. For all of its good intentions, The End is a tone poem in misgauged effects. It simply doesn't work.

An acceptable commercial product that's entertaining despite its notable lack of structure. [Full Review in Spanish]

The madcap fun doesn't kick in until Dom DeLuise shows up as the energized wacko Polish inmate in the same loony bin as Burt Reynolds.