“It owes the canon nothing.”
The movie pursues immediacy and audience pleasure without begging institutions to certify its worth.

Taking Care of Business
Comedy · 1990
An uptight advertising exec has his entire life in a filofax organizer which mistakenly ends up in the hands of a friendly convict who poses as him.
Taking Care of Business
“You are who you pretend to be.”
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.4 / 10
9.8K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
33 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
42 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.3 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
An uptight advertising exec has his entire life in a filofax organizer which mistakenly ends up in the hands of a friendly convict who poses as him.
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Taking Care of Business?
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their caseThe Big-Idea Head
“You watch with your brain, not your gut.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
Watch in your region.
Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.
Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Arthur Hiller
Written by
J.J. Abrams · Jill Mazursky
Put Taking Care of Business on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
“Easy pleasure, short half-life.”
It moves efficiently through the moment but offers little reason to keep arguing once the credits end.






