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| Genre: | Thriller |
| Year: | 1987 |
| Rating: | R |
| Length: | 1 Hour 35 Minutes |
| Cast: | John Flynn, James Woods, Brian Dennehy, Victoria Tennant |
Brian Dennehy plays a Wambaugh-type cop who has flourished as a novelist. At the moment, however, Dennehy is suffering from a profound case of writer's block. Coming to the rescue, as it were, is professional hit man James Woods. Recently dumped by his boss, above-suspicion business executive Paul Shenar, Woods is anxious to tell his life story to Dennehy, in hopes of striking it rich with a tell-all bestseller. Shenar, however, takes a dim view of Woods' indiscretions, and for a while it looks as though it's curtains for both Dennehy and his teenaged daughter Allison Balson. Screenwriter Larry Cohen has claimed that Best Seller was based on Strangers on a Train, given the unsavory symbiotic relationship between novelist and hitman in the film. Cohen might also have mentioned another apparently inspiration, Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin, since Dennehy's growing fascination with his subject nearly proves to be his undoing (in addition, Shenar looks and sounds a lot like a young Welles). Despite its seemingly innoccuous title, Best Seller is an excessively violent film, especially during the last ten minutes. Hal Erickson
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