One day while he is down in the basement replacing a fuse, Caine gets a nasty electrical shock, and it starts him to thinking."A Shock to the System" is the story of how Caine methodically eliminates the barriers to his professional success and personal pleasure. To say more would be to spoil some of the fun.

 

The movie toys with us as it shows Caine almost getting caught, as it plants clues we're sure somebody will find and as it introduces the character of a genial Connecticut police detective (Will Patton) who persists in asking uncomfortable questions. Will the cop or anybody else figure out what Caine is doing? By cleverly manipulating the conventions of the crime movie, director Jan Egleson and writer Andrew Klavan lead us up one garden path and down another.