How to Get Ahead in Advertising

The movie grows more and more desperate until it seems to go to pieces like poor brilliant Bagley. The final madness has less to do with wit than with a cinematic effect. The film's good humor, however, is consistent. Read full review

The opening half-hour is outrageously brilliant, but descends into a pot-boiler of repetitive, if animated, soapbox preaching about the manipulation of punters by the denziens of Madison Avenue and their international brotherhood. Read full review

More subtlety or quiet introspection might have lent greater credibility to the role, though Grant and Robinson unquestionably have made their point. Read full review

How To Get Ahead In Advertising is often an uneasy mixture of satire and parody that plunges past anarchy into the most foursquare polemic imaginable. But at least it has the courage of every one of its convictions and Grant's doughty performance at its centre almost persuades one that he was not a little miscast. [27 Jul 1989]

The picture would be genuinely hilarious were the subject matter not so overworked. Read full review

The battle of the heads in "How to Get Ahead in Advertising" is curious, bizarre and at times distasteful. The plot becomes almost existential, but the ending is a cop-out. [21 Nov 1989]

Pretty good entertainment, but not an outstanding time at the movies. [17 Aug 1989, p.6E]

A scabrous, somewhat wayward anti-80's rant that, whilst providing Grant with a few moments of high farce, lacks the wit and social surety of Withnail & I. Read full review