Wrong Is Right

Sean Connery stars in Richard Brook’s political satire as a TV news reporter on the case to track down stolen nuclear arms, but in doing so uncovers a shocking conspiracy., Richard Brooks’ black comedy about a worldwide scramble for nuclear weapons. Sean Connery, George Grizzard, Robert Conrad, Katharine Ross. Philindros: G.D. Spradlin. Hubbard: John Saxon., Based on Charles McCarry’s 1979 novel The Better Angels, Wrong is Right is set in a near future in which violence has become something of a national sport and television news has fallen to tabloid depths (a significantly bigger stretch in 1982, when the film was released.) Star Sean Connery plays Patrick Hale, a globe-trotting reporter with access to a staggering array of world leaders. As the film opens, he has ventured to the Arab country of Hegreb to interview his old acquaintance, King Ibn Awad (Ron Moody). Awad has learned that the President of the United States (George Grizzard) may have issued orders for his removal; as a result, Awad is apparently making arrangements to deliver two mini-nuclear devices — each about the size of a small suitcase — to a terrorist, with the intention of detonating them in Israel and the United States, unless the President resigns. In the intricate plot that unfolds, nothing is quite the way it seems, and Hale finds himself caught between political leaders, revolutionaries, CIA agents and other figures, trying to get to the bottom of it all.