A Gem of a Jewel Heist Caper
- Review By:
- tpb
- Date:
- January 1, 2009
- Movie:
- A Fish Called Wanda
- Director:
- Charles Crichton
- Released:
- 1988
- Good Guy:
- Archie Leach
- Played By:
- John Cleese
- Bad Guy:
- Otto
- Played By:
- Kevin Kline
- MPAA Rating:
- R
- Family Friendly Ages:
- Older teens
No matter how many times in his career John Cleese has bounded across a set like a seemingly controlled yet panicked ostrich in a last-ditch effort to alter fate, it never grows tiresome to watch. His long, skinny legs carry his stiff, lanky frame stridently across a room while his pinched and intense face tries to pretend his next move is the inevitable and logical choice for putting to a sudden end whatever turmoil is surrounding him. It is physical comedy at its best: unpredictable, unnerving, and absolutely hysterical. Cleese plays the part of Archie Leach, a repressed, married barrister who falls for Jamie Lee Curtis as Wanda Gershwitz, a con artist and jewel thief who seems motivated solely by riches and the delicious double-cross. Leach is a more subdued and intellectual character than Basil Fawlty, Cleese's hotel-owner character from the BBC television series Fawlty Towers, but this is exactly as it should be. Here he is surrounded by the cartoonish and hilarious Kevin Kline as Otto, an imbecilic, faux-intellectual, weapons man and Michael Palin, as Ken, a career criminal, animal lover, and intractable stutterer. Kline won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the insufferable and boorish Otto. Palin, as it turns out, modeled his utterly convincing stutter on his real-life father's own affliction. Together, the two of them bring just the right level of mayhem and caricature to a well-written action movie comedy with a love story twist. It's an ensemble cast having a blast in a rollicking, loopy heist movie. What more could one ask for in a preposterone?
- Comment from:
- anonymous
- Date:
- February 26, 2010
I didn't think it was that funny.
You've also got to give some credit to Marcia Aitken as Cleese's wife Wendy. How did she manage to keep a straight face with both Kevin Kline and John Cleese in the room?!