The End

An engaging attempt to take the piss out of the crocodile tears that have been gleefully exploited since Love Story.

The End never really lives up to its beginning. It's much too long and, after a while, the one-track theme - how a man reacts when he's suddenly told he has less than three months to live - begins to get old. [26 May 1978, p.20]

The End initially promises to answer in disturbing comic form, mixing pathos and pratfalls to fashion a pitch-black comedy about a man freaking out on the edge of oblivion. But in the face of such a risky subject, director-star Reynolds and writer Jerry Belson get cold feet. [22 May 1978, p.72]

The film veers wildly from decent black comedy to dumb slapstick, and director Reynolds seems unsure of his own intentions. In a few places this film is quite funny, however, although De Luise and all the scenes he's in are unbearable.

This is half-heartedly satiric material that's been directed by Mr. Reynolds as if it were broad, knock-about comedy sometimes and, at other times, as if it were meant to evoke pathos, which it never does.

Eventually, the film’s old-fashioned, shtick-friendly tone stops seeming charming and becomes exhausting because DeLuise exerts so much effort where none is necessary.

Production is a tasteless and overripe comedy that disintegrates very early into hysterical, undisciplined hamming.