The Man Who Knew Too Little Review
by "Harvey S. Karten" (film_critic AT compuserve DOT com)November 24th, 1997
THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE
By Harvey Karten, Ph.D.
Warner Bros./ Regency Enterprises
Director: Mon Amiel
Writer: Robert Farrar, Howard Franklin
Cast: Bill Murray, Peter Gallagher, Joanne Whalley, Richard Wilson
If "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" is "Gone with the Wind" on mescaline, then "The Man Who Knew Too Little" might be called "Austin Powers" on Seconal. "The Man Who Knew Too Little" is embraced by the camp-spy subgenre of film, a category so broad that it includes not only the usual suspects like 007 but even allegedly serious cloak-and-dagger tales like "The Jackal," which are so overblown that they traverse the boundary into spoof.
The major plus of "The Man Who Knew Too Little" is Bill Murray, one of the funniest comedians around, a man who has carved a special niche by understated humor. Rejecting the flamboyance of a Mike Myers, Murray evokes laughs largely by playing the guy without a clue, an innocent who is not so much dumb as he is unaware. While his current movie is a drawn-out, one-joke affair based on Murray's obliviousness, the funniest scene--one which will be appreciated by those in his mostly youthful audience who have traveled to other countries--occurs near the beginning. When Wallace Ritchie (Bill Murray), a Blockbuster Video salesclerk from Des Moines, Iowa, arrives at a London airport, he chats up the man at passport control as though the bureaucrat were an old friend. "Charming accent--are you from around here?" he asks naively, in a barrage of commentary that results in his being the agent's only customer of the day.
After that scene, it's pretty much downhill as Ritchie proceeds from event to incident. The single-joke concept begins when Ritchie shows up by surprise at the London home of his very successful brother James (Peter Gallagher) on the very day that James is to make a presentation before a group of German executives. Eager to get the bumpkin out of his way at least until the evening is over, James buys Ritchie a ticket to a Performance Theater event, in which the patron interacts with the performers at a murder mystery, improvising his own dialogue. When Ritchie answers a pay phone call giving him an assignment, he thinks it's part of the game and plays along, involving himself unwittingly in a plot by British and Russian agents who are planting a bomb at a state dinner in order to sabotage the signing of a peace treaty between Britain and Russia.
Taken from a novel by Robert Farrar who, along with Howard Franklin has adapted the story to the screen, "The Man Who Knew Too Little" is directed as a laid-back piece by Jon Amiel--with thoroughly restrained buffoonery. If the humor is British, it is not of the Monty Python variety--even the usually hilarious Alfred Molina is toned down in the role of Boris the butcher, a guy who appears too gentle to have decapitated one of his victims.
If the airport scene is the unwitting comic highlight of the film, the physical comedy reaches its peak with a merely whimsical Russian dance which finds Mr. Murray imitating the steps of the professional troupe which surrounds him, providing entertainment for the diplomats who are about to initial the new treaty. While Murray is at his best in roles involving his simply responding to the provocations of others, "The Man Who Knew Too Little" needs to cut its supporting actors more rope. They are people who lampoon too little. Rated PG. Running Time: 95 minutes. (C) 1997 Harvey
Karten
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