As an active follower (and participant) in Canadian Film & TV, I tend to hear a lot of rhetoric bemoaning the constant use of Canada as a “backlot” by Hollywood and that our country would be better represented on screen if only Canadian content and its filmmakers were allowed to blossom. I’ve always had trouble with this argument as current CANCON rules say nothing about having to actually set a screen story in this country much less feature Canadian characters. Most “Canadian” Film & TV is perfectly content to pass their products off as generically “North American” as if the very hint of a maple leaf will send international distributors ducking for cover. This is an age-old problem and the much-maligned “Tax Shelter” era (1975-1982) was full of them. Case in point, I enter into evidence: Nothing Personal.
Right off the bat, the theme of this story is promptly shouted at us by an irate associate of college Professor Roger Keller (Donald Sutherland), who with spittle to spare, bemoans the hippie generation selling out their social values for comfortable suburban existence. Roger himself is perfectly content to keep his activism within the confines of his classroom until activist student Peter (Nope’s Michael Wincott) brings to his attention the destruction of an endangered Alaskan seal population to make way for a ballistic missile site.
Endowed with vigor from this new cause, Roger heads straight to Washington, D.C. where he promptly hits a brick wall trying to plead the seals’ case to military brass and congress. With no major law firm in town willing to take on the project’s contractor Dunbar Construction and its shrewd president Ralston (Lawrence Dane), Roger ends up turning to the first attorney in the yellow pages: Abigail Adams (Suzanne Somers).
Abigail makes up for in tenacity and resourcefulness for what she lacks in experience and the pair soon has Dunbar on the ropes when they manage to initiate a stockholder revolt, only to be thwarted by a well-connected proxy voter. But one last hope may be found in Oscar (Chief Dan George), an elderly “Manitoban” Indian and lone survivor of the tribe with original treaty rights to the land. With this information leaked, the race is on to track down Oscar first and secure rights to the land.
Oh yeah, Roger and Abigail also fall in lust and have off-screen sex for a few scenes. It has near zero bearing on the plot, but makes for a better poster I guess.
I previously described Nothing Personal as a “stinker” sight unseen in my tax shelter era article and I can confirm that this diagnosis was in fact correct having now examined the patient. The film is an oil and water mix of social drama and screwball comedy that might as well have had a laugh track slapped on so we as an audience would know what was supposed to be funny (only about two or three jokes actually manage to land).
Donald Sutherland capably inhabits the role of a buttoned-up academic in over his head and Suzanne Somers positively leaps off the screen as the bubbly and resourceful Abigail. Unfortunately, the two have sub-zero chemistry whether between the sheets or out of them, with a minutes-long foreplay scene being especially torturous. The antagonists barely rise above the level of cartoon villains and Chief Dan George is worse than wasted in a role that requires him to do little more than show up, shut up, and sign a few papers. SCTV fans might get an extra kick out of spotting various members of the cast in early film roles (Look ma! Joe Flaherty as a cop!).
I’m sure my Ontarian readers will recognize the locations doubling for D.C, Philadelphia and the American Midwest. The lone shout-out to Canada the film manages is to transport Manitoba’s Dawson Bay to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and name a fictional first nation after the province.
In a way, the title Nothing Personal almost comes off as a backhanded apology for having absconded with your admission money and (if you were a Canadian taxpayer circa 1979) your tax dollars too. It looks like a movie, talks like a movie, but audiences of any age are better off getting their Suzanne Somers fix on Three’s Company reruns, seeing Sutherland in one of his Golden Globe-winning roles, and experiencing Chief Dan George in literally anything else.
3/10
If you must, Nothing Personal is available to stream for free on Tubi