O Lucky Man!

A modern Pilgrim's Progress, with Malcolm McDowell (reprising the name, if not the character, of the hero of If...) as the young man in search of fame and the better things of life, O Lucky Man! is a disappointment. Lacking the specificity of either If... or This Sporting Life, it's an undisciplined (at nearly three hours long) humanist shriek of anger at what 'They' are doing to 'Us', lashing out wildly without purpose. The result is a film that approaches its material not in the manner of a Swift or an Orwell, but as the Carry On team might under the temporary influence of surrealism. In short, all puff and no thought. None the less interesting, with Alan Price's songs punctuating and informing the film's episodic action.