A Shock to the System is a 1990 American dark comedy crime thriller film directed by Jan Egleson and written by Andrew Klavan, starring Michael Caine, Swoosie Kurtz, and Elizabeth McGovern. It is based on the 1984 novel of the same name by British author Simon Brett.
Graham Marshall (Caine), a long-time executive in a large advertising company, is unexpectedly passed over for promotion. Angry and disappointed, Marshall unwittingly causes an accident in the subway, in which a panhandler is killed.
Marshall is able to leave unobserved, which gives him the idea that murder can be a way get ahead in life, and deciding to take revenge on the people who have caused him problems in his life, Marshall starts meticulously planning their deaths.
Samuel L. Jackson can be seen briefly as a three-card monte dealer. Will Patton plays the cop who suspects Graham.
This film features examples of:
- Accidental Murder: Graham is being harassed for change by a homeless man and pushes him away in the subway as the train comes. The man falls, then gets killed as the train hits him.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: In the source novel, Graham's downfall comes at the end when his mother-in-law pulls a Thanatos Gambit, drinking poison and pretending he gave it to her, so he's arrested for a murder he didn't actually commit. In this film, he gets away with everything.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Although Graham is the protagonist, he's clearly a villain. By the end, he gets away completely with murdering several people.
- Big Bad: Graham Marshall, who is a Villain Protagonist.
- Catchphrase Graham develops one based on his old reputation as a corporate wizard with the nickname of "Merlin" in his heyday:Graham: Abracadabra. Alakazoom. Bye-bye, baby.... Boom.
- Chekhov's Gun: The souvenir lighter that Graham's friend George gave him. When Graham leaves it behind at the scene of the boat explosion, it becomes incriminating evidence that could send him to prison.
- Death Glare: Graham has a lot of these, with possibly the most spectacular being when Leslie prompts him to be submissive and light the cigar of his hated rival Bob.
- Driven to Suicide: George kills himself with the downers Graham left behind out of depression after he's forced into retirement.
- Foreshadowing: Graham's new boss, Jones, mentions that instead of a yacht, he has a Cessna that he likes to fly around. The film ends with Graham getting Jones's corner office by blowing up his plane.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Graham starts out as a mild-mannered, henpecked ad executive. Then after accidentally killing a homeless man begging him for change and no one notices, he has a revelation about how easy killing is. He resolves to murder everyone who's causing him problems (his wife, his boss etc.) and make their deaths appear like accidents. It works, transforming him into a cold-blooded, cunning murderer.
- Henpecked Husband: Graham is one starting out, with his wife constantly belittling and criticizing him any time he fails at something. She's his first victim when he turns to murder.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: The scene where Bob and Henry are blown up, when Bob's yacht explodes due to the rigged gas leak Graham set up, is intercut with Stella having an orgasm as she has sex with Graham.
- It Gets Easier: Graham is horrified when he kills a homeless man accidentally. However, when no one sees he caused the man's death, this inspires him to murder people in his life who he finds problematic. In these cases, he shows no hesitation nor remorse.
- Karma Houdini: During the course of the film, Graham's Villain Protagonist pushes a hobo in front of an oncoming train, murders his wife in cold blood, seduces and drugs a co-worker to use her as an alibi, blows up his Bad Boss (and an Innocent Bystander), and has a jolly good time doing it. In the end, he seduces the same coworker again to get her to turn over the only evidence implicating him, puts her on a bus, gets promoted to vice president of his company, and, in the final scene, murders a member of the board of directors for his job (and his corner office). Averted in the original novel where he gets arrested via a Thanatos Gambit by the mother of a victim, who poisons herself so that Graham will appear to have done it.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: All of the murders Graham commits are cleverly disguised as accidents, so the police can never prove he's guilty. There's not enough even to arrest Graham, let alone get a conviction.
- Mirror Character: One of the things that drives Graham into a killing spree is his old friend George getting booted out of the company for being too old. But towards the end of the movie, after Graham has taken Bob's position, he's laying people off with even more enthusiasm than Bob did.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Graham decides it is after accidentally killing a homeless man and going unnoticed. He resolves to kill the people in his life causing him problems and make their deaths look accidental.
- The Perfect Crime: Graham discovers just how easy to get away with murder, and decides to test the limits of his ingenuity and the cops' credulity.
- Reluctant Retiree: Graham's friend George, an older man at the company who is humiliated and shoved out by Bob the smarmy prick. This is another motive for Graham's murder spree.Graham: Without work, I'll be dead in a year.
- Right Through the Wall: The loud passionate moaning as Bob and Tara have sex makes Graham and Leslie, stuck in a Dead Sparks marriage and sleeping in the downstairs guest bed, give each other an awkward look before they roll over and go to sleep.
- The Rival: Bob (Peter Riegert), another exec at Graham who gets promoted over his head to the job Graham wanted. This is the breaking point that leads Graham on his path to murder.
- Secret-Keeper: Stella realizes that Graham was involved with his boss's death after finding the incriminating lighter he left behind, but is intimidated into keeping silent when he makes clear killing her is something easy for him. Graham is satisfied on seeing she's realized this and lets her go.
- The Sociopath: The fact that Graham is the Villain Protagonist and the people he kills are Asshole Victims obscures this for a while, but he actually is this. Once he realizes he can murder and get away with it he kills without conscience. He drugs his own girlfriend Stella to give himself an alibi, and he makes it quite clear he'll kill her too if she makes problems for him.
- Villain Protagonist: The film follows an average joe who, after accidentally killing a homeless man, decides to also ingeniously murder his wife and boss, seduce his secretary, and get that job he's always wanted. And he gets away with it all, too.
