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Sometimes knowing nothing about a movie before going in is a good thing. I had no preconceptions to topple or bad reviews to forget. If you do not want a plot synopsis or any kind of analysis, just check out the rating (Matinee Price) and stop reading now. I don't want to raise or lower anyone's expectations. You could read the book, "Watch that Man" by Robert Farrar if you like.
Bill Murray is a Blockbuster Video employee who pops by England on his birthday to visit his brother, Peter Gallager. Peter is a high-stakes businessman entertaining important German clients and can't be disturbed so he buys Murray a ticket to Theatre of Life, a new entertainment concept. |
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Three and a half hours of interactive semi-improv puts you in the starring role of some underworld crime intrigue. A cool idea - but he shows up to the phone booth too early and accidentally ends up in some actual genuine intrigue involving international espionage and bombs and girls and reviving the Cold War on the eve of a treaty signed between Russia and England. There's more to it than that and you know I mean the Union of Soviet States. |
| Anyway, hapless movie buff Murray gets sucked into the real plot (and the intended grunt for the real job dispatches with the actors, starting a manhunt for Murray) and genuine wackiness ensues. I was fortunate, unlike my companions, to not think of The Game while I was watching - the conceit of the Theatre of Life was a similar one to the Game's Game but after that all the similarities cease. I loved the Game, though. |
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At times The Man Who Knew Too Little reminded me of the Peter Sellers' Pink Panther movies, with the accidental bumbling into heroics, but without that special spark that Sellers brought to the role that made you think, maybe he does know what he is doing. At other times, especially the final scene with the bomb, it reminded me of the 50's/early 60's mistaken identity Danny Kaye movies (readers take note: I worship Danny Kaye as a god so, so, just know that) with our hero trying desperately to fit in but failing but at the same time accidentally bumbing into heroics, but without Kaye's innate lovableness and warmth.
Murray has always been a gifted comedian but his gift has generally been in being abrasive. |
| Even in Stripes, his most "love me ain't I cute" role I can think of without a video guide, we still wonder why that MP likes him even as we accept that she does. It doesn't make him less funny, but generally the bumbling heroics genre has been limited to affable, cuddly comedians, and that is the only thing wrong with this movie. Joanne Whalley (lost the Kilmer) is the dame and she looks as if she is performing in a Zucker movie, as if she's about to break character and be really funny or never break character and just be a small incidental bump in the plot. |
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A third object is to be the empty beautiful woman role for Murray to save, and since she does none of these things, only serving to reinforce the mistaken identity gags, she is kind of forgettable. As with all plots like this, we know what everyone is talking about, and sometimes the jokes are kind of obvious. But to make up for it, right after a moderately simple joke about impressing the Germans, we get a whole new situation thrown in and it's OK again.
The music is totally fabulous. A classy noirish lounge groove. "Fever!" It's worth seeing, but in a way it's a museum piece - it harks back to those movies deemed classics now that they never make any more, like The Inspector General or The Pink Panther, but it doesn't trash the genre with rapping or sexual situations or anything - it could be released via time travel and except for a little language and some mild S&M (all for the greater gag I assure you) it would be a big hit. |
| Today we seek different things, and that is a shame, because these movies are classics for a reason. For that reason I enjoyed it, and I hope you will too. Mild irony: These genre movies were a big hit when the Red Menace was hovering over us all; this movie's villains seek to restart the Cold War. Ooh ironic! Maybe the filmmakers want to usher in a new age of sweet wholesome family comedies. More power to them, I say! Anything to prevent the production of Spawn 2. |
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