A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Directed by Charles Crichton. Starring John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Tom Georgeson, Maria Aitken, Patricia Hayes, Cynthia Cleese. [R]

Cinema’s premier farce is a transatlantic riot that pairs American crooks Curtis and Kline with British mastermind Georgeson and his stuttering cohort (Palin). When their London diamond heist goes bad and Georgeson moves the diamonds to an unknown location before getting arrested, Curtis gets close to his barrister (Cleese) to get the information out of him, seducing him to the point where the dupe falls in love with her. Meanwhile, Kline lets his jealousy get the better of him in a series of increasingly stupid stunts, and animal-lover Palin keeps accidentally killing dogs while trying to bump off a witness. A wicked delight from start to finish; well-constructed, sharply-written, and expertly directed by wily veteran Charles Crichton, earning him an Oscar nomination at the tender age of 78 (it was his first film in over thirty years and, ultimately, his last). Although Cleese’s screenplay is a thing of beauty—witty, obscene, intelligent, and often in questionable taste—the project wouldn’t have worked half as well without inspired casting, including a very funny and sexy Curtis (never better), the smartest cookie in the jar and uncontrollably aroused by foreign languages, and flamboyant Kline in his Oscar-winning role of Otto, the “totally deranged”, anglophobic, Nietzsche-loving killer who believes the central message of Buddhism is “every man for himself”, a true vulgarian and oblivious idiot. Too many gaspingly funny scenes to highlight, but the ones where Kline tries to talk his way out of being discovered by the barrister’s wife (Aitken) in her home (“I’m, um, Harvey…Manfred…jen…sen…don”) and where Kline tortures Palin by eating every tropical fish in a tank (and then Palin tries to “sing” a response to Cleese in the aftermath) are hard to top. In a fun nod to film buffs, Cleese’s character’s name, Archie Leach, is Cary Grant’s birth name. Most of the main cast reunited several years later for Fierce Creatures.

97/100