Shock to the System: Critic Reviews

This is a sly, refreshingly grown-up gay entertainment, though rather less satisfying as a thriller.

... director Ron Oliver applies a thin veneer of straight-to-cable pseudo-gloss without finding a workable tone, and the cast lacks the charisma and chemistry to make the genre and gender-bending register as more than novelty.

A perfectly respectable second entry in the saga of gay private eye Donald Strachey.

While the idea would certainly seem to hold promise for interesting social commentary, the script by Ron McGee lacks the necessary bite, as does the rote direction of Ron Oliver.

Where film noir is often punch-drunk with a jab of snappy patter and a left hook of world-weary cynicism, Shock tries to clinch with understanding.

It's certainly a pleasant enough way to kill 90 minutes.

Were it not for the fact that the hero and many of the major supporting characters are gay... this breezy, disposable film could as easily have been a mainstream network pilot for a McMillan and Wife-style series.

Pity there was no room for Phyllis Diller or Carol Channing here, because then the film might have had a leg up on Scooby-Doo and the Creepy Castle.