Silver Bears

Paul Erdman's The Silver Bears, an amusing novel about high finance and high-level chicanery, becomes a film about lowest common denominators and low-level buffoonery. Passer brings to the subject all the subtle wit of Pravda, and scriptwriter Peter Stone fumbles it by being both confusing and condescending. But the really insuperable burden is the feeble pack of turns from the cast (they can't be called performances): Caine as the financial wizard, Audran as a woman who wears lots of different clothes, and Jourdan doing his professional European act. Worst is Cybill Shepherd as a kind of giggling California wholefood cereal, wearing layers of woollens and layers of spectacles. If your idea of a good laugh is watching Caine spill his breakfast onto his lap - twice in a row - this is your movie.