20: The Man Who Knew Too Little [1997]
Director Jon Amiel
Screenplay Robert Farrar, Howard Franklin
Studio Warner Bros Pictures
Genre Espionage comedy
Released 1997
Running Time 93 minutes
Starring Bill Murray, Joanne Whalley
Co-Starring Richard Wilson, Alfred Molina, Peter Gallacher
Synopsis
American Wallace Ritchie [Murray] decides to celebrate his birthday by flying to London to surprise his brother, James [Gallacher]. James, a high-flying city banker, had already made plans to spend the evening entertaining visiting investors from Germany; to keep Wallace entertained for the evening, James pays for Wallace to take part in a real-life play which promises to cast him as a participant in a crime drama. Following a serious mix-up, Wallace unwittingly becomes embroiled in attempting to foil a very real plot to kill both the British Prime Minister and the President of the USA , but as far as he’s aware it’s all just an act…
Reaction
The central concept of this film is a great idea, with lots of potential comedy to be gained from the idea of the unwitting hero in a life-threatening and high-tension situation. Thinking that everything he experiences is an act, he doesn’t take anything seriously and reacts in the opposite way he would if presented with the same situation under normal circumstances. This creates a great deal of confusion in those he meets, from muggers to policemen to mob bosses, with his misplaced confidence meaning that he says “yes” to every question posed to him, as he thinks he’s being led through the story by actors.
Sadly, the film never lives up to this potential. Amiel’s direction is generally rather lazy – while the film largely strays from the conventions of using establishing shots of famous London landmarks, it instead uses very “British-sounding” actors, such as Richard Wilson. This film was Murray’s third – and so far final – collaboration with his Quick Change co-director Howard Franklin, who co-wrote this film. The very thin plot is heavily padded as a result of Wallace’s many cases of mistaken identity, allowing Murray to pull off some good, but not exceptional comedy – clearly he was on autopilot for much of this film. Christopher Young‘s music is fitting and somewhat lifts the film; it’s thematically very much like The Saint or The Pink Panther – very 60s, very kitsch – and the near-constant double-bass twang is clichéd and rather simplistic, but effective.
The film uses a range of “authentically-British” actors and TV personalities/newscasters, with the ostensible intention of establishing a convincing interpretation of London, but it sadly just comes off as the result of a low-budget production. I’m not sure who this is intended for the benefit of, as a comedy film surely doesn’t need attempts at real-world authenticity; American viewers would largely have no idea who these people are and would gain nothing from knowing whether they are being used in a way that would be relevant. Many of the British supporting cast, such as Alfred Molina and John Thomson, are playing Russian gangsters with horrifically-bad accents – and a particularly horrid moustache, in Molina’s case – which will surely only result in decent comedy for anyone who is already familiar with them and understands that they are being deliberately hammy; otherwise, it’d just seem plain bad.
As a big fan of David Fincher’s The Game, The Man Who Knew Too Little is a very interesting counterpoint, especially as the two were released theatrically within two months of each other. The Game stars Michael Douglas as Nicholas van Orton, whose brother Conrad [Sean Penn] buys him a part in a live-action role playing game for a birthday gift – sounds familiar? Fincher’s film is very much a psychological thriller, with van Orton suffering deep and sustained emotional trauma as a result of a series of life-shattering events, unable to tell where the game ends and real life begins; The Man Who Knew Too Little takes an entirely different route with the same basic building blocks – with neither the gamesmasters [including, rather fittingly, Dexter Fletcher] nor the player being fully aware of what’s happening, leading to a series of comic events.
The Game takes the much more successful approach and, while Murray is enjoyable in the lead role, The Man Who Knew Too Little is sadly all too unremarkable.
[Copyright 1997 Warner Bros Pictures]
Box Office
USA: $13,717,039
104th-highest grossing film in the USA in 1997.
Awards/Reviews
No awards/nominations
Rotten Tomatoes: 38% fresh [29 reviews]
Find Out More
Wikipedia
IMDb
Box Office Mojo
Buy Online
BBFC Classification: 12
Amazon UK – Not available
hmv.com – Not available
Play.com – Not available
iTunes – Not available
NEXT UP: The Darjeeling Limited [2007]
