The End

Wendell "Sonny" Lawson, a successful real estate agent, learns he has an incurable illness and only a short time left to live. Rather than wait for the disease to take its course, he decides to end his life on his own terms. His attempts fail repeatedly, and one of them lands him in a psychiatric hospital, where he meets Marlon Borunki, a patient eager to assist with the plan. What follows is a series of mishaps in which Sonny's efforts to die keep going wrong, while the people around him, including his wife Jessica, his daughter and his lover, remain largely unaware of what he is going through.

The film is a black comedy directed by Burt Reynolds, the second of the six features he directed, arriving between Gator and Sharky's Machine. Reynolds also stars as Sonny, with Dom DeLuise as Marlon, Sally Field, Strother Martin, David Steinberg and Joanne Woodward in supporting roles. Jerry Belson wrote the screenplay, and Lawrence Gordon produced for United Artists.

Released in 1978, the film cost about 3 million dollars and returned roughly 45 million worldwide, a strong result for a comedy of its period. On IMDb it holds 6.1 out of 10 from around 4,800 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 5.6 from a much smaller base of 72 votes. A critics' rating of 5.7 from 18 reviews places it close to the audience scores.