John Cleese has been one of my favorite actors for some time now. He’s probably most famous for Monty Python and that’s where I first saw him. All the same, I think I most enjoyed him in Fawlty Towers (a sitcom from the mid 70s).
As I was perusing IMDB one day, I ran into A Fish Called Wanda. As it turns out, not only did John Cleese star in the film but he also wrote and directed it as well. I couldn’t lose! So, I had Mike add it to our Netflix queue and it arrived shortly thereafter.
I ended up watching the film last night. “Wanda” was made in 1988 and I thought of that as a good signn — ’88 seemed like a good year for Cleese. But, the film just wasn’t as funny as I had hoped. Sure, I had read the front-page comments (“Excellent caper comedy with a perfect cast”) but I should have read the “other user comments as well”.
I’m sure that most people find the film really good, but I just didn’t somehow. And, I found myself sharing many of the sentiments from the second-page reviews:
“Kevin Kline is almost unbearably irritating, and his character makes no sense (is he really a CIA killer, and if so, would he really be such a dumbo?); Jamie Lee Curtis simply isn’t as sexy or seductive as the film-makers want us to think she is, Michael Palin is wasted in a throwaway one-joke role and Cleese never gets much of a chance to do anything beyond looking bashful and doing his stock-in-trade ‘testy posh bloke’ schtick. […] ”
“Also Kevin Kline is too good as sadistic maniac Otto. If this was a Monty Python movie, Otto would be such an outragiously exaggerated character, that it would be at least a little bit funny. But Kline acts so naturally that you just hate the guy throughout the movie. […] ”
Those reviews pinpoint how I feel — Kline’s character was too mean to be funny, Palin’s stuttering isn’t even funny the first time, and Cleese’s character is more bumbling than humorous. Then again, maybe it’s just me. All the same, I don’t feel too bad for giving it a chance — with Netflix, it costs the same no matter how many movies we rent each month.
Watch it again, then watch it for a third time, there is a deep subtlety to the humor that is lost on you at first.
Why would a moron like Otto read Friedrich Nietzsche?
Why would Cleese’s character Archie Leach, fall for a american “Law Student”?
Why did Wanda have so much control over all the men in this movie.
Don’t think too much, this movie is a constant stream of dick jokes.
you know that mom and dad love this movie, right?
Adrian: Yeah, I know they do ;). And, I really enjoyed quite a few scenes. But, as a whole, I didn’t really get into it.
How could you have _JUST_ now watched AFCW? This movie is such a classic – it’s positively ancient.
I agreee with the first post here – this is just such classic Cleese that anyone who could stomach Fawlty Towers just HAS to love it! Even the minor characters are just so much fun – that old woman Ken keeps trying to bump off, Archie’s wife and daughter who are just so full of themselves that they don’t even see what’s coming.
Yeah, Alex, you need to watch it again. And casually this time – will ya? :)
-J
Watch ‘The Ministry of Silly Walks” with Cleese again. The first time I saw that, I was crying. Hilarious stuff.