What was this 80's Sci-Fi movie?

Cafe Society
1

This is going to be pretty obscure, and Google is not getting the job done. Hopefully you guys will deliver.

This movie played on early 80’s HBO in heavy rotation. It was about some sort of light gun that you could shoot at someone, and the person who got hit would freeze while time continued around him. For example, the hero is being chased in his car, and he accidentally looks in the rearview mirror and gets “shot,” then wakes up with his car crashed in a fountain.

I don’t remember who was in it, or any details other than the fact that the company behind the gun was a computer company, and was using computers to rule the world through subliminal advertising…or something. And at one point (the finale?) the hero is being stalked in a stage where automated sets would move around to create computerized commercials.

That’s all I got.

2

Man, I know the movie but not it’s name! I remember that the defense against the gun was smoke bombs.

3

Was it Looker, written and directed by Michael Crichton?

4

Looker was my guess, too.

5

That one’s easy-Looker. I’m surprised I’m the first one to get it.

6

That’s it alright. Wilbo523’s link confirmed it - it’s even got the rearview-mirror-getting-zapped screenshot.

Albert Finney? James Coburn? Susan Dey? /Adding to Netflix

7

Me too.

8

Didn’t Susan Dey give us some nudal frontity in that?

9

It was Rio by Duran Duran.

10

That gun was a 1920’s-style death ray gun, right?

11

Yes. It was the moment that I realized that a PG movie could actually be PRETTY DAMN COOL!!

12

In a plane on a treadmill, if memory serves.

13

Once, but not for a full twenty minutes.