Nothing Personal (1980)

Nothing Personal is a movie so wrapped up in money and union regulations that the characters and the story kind of take a back seat.  It is glaringly obvious from the word ‘go’ that only reason that this movie ever got greenlit was to get Suzanne Somers into her first movie.  She’s funny, she’s gorgeous and people see her on ‘Three’s Company’ every week.  Whatever happens once the studio has your admission is not their concern.

I understand that there is a need to make money in the movie business – you can’t have art without commerce, but this is moviemaking at its most crass.  The story with the upfront and uptight Robert Keller (Donald Sutherland) a generally stoned professor who is shown some footage of baby seals being clubbed to death and is upset by it (who wouldn’t be?).  As anyone would be, he is so moved by the footage that he feels the need to take action. 

His action is an injunction against the heartless (and apparently faceless) company that is behind the murders. But the focus shifts when the discovers that the lawyer who will be representing him is a woman (oh horror of horrors).

This is as dumb as it sounds, and the filmmakers go to no great pains to make it anything more than the least common denominator.  Sutherland and Somers sleep together.  There’s sex, there’s heat, but all of it PG-rated.

Oh, and there’s also American Indian Rights, the preservation of wild animals and, for no reason, an overextended car chase at end the goes on for so long that we might as well be watching NASCAR.  This is a dumb movie made for dumb reasons starring some otherwise very smart people acting out scenes that feel about 20 years out of date.  They ought to be embarrassed.