Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Movie – A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

The movie A Fish Called Wanda opened in the U.S. to not much fanfare in July of 1988.  By August it was getting such great word of mouth that its box office was increasing each week, not decreasing.  By mid September it actually became the number one movie at the box office.  When Awards season came around it received three Oscar nominations (including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay), and had a win for Kevin Kline as Best Supporting Actor – one of the very few times a comedic performance has won an Oscar.  Over the years this movie has been named one of the top comedies ever made by such entities as the American Film Institute (AFI), Premiere magazine, Bravo, Total Film magazine, and Reader’s Digest.  I consider it one of the funniest films I have ever seen.

I ended up going to see it in the theaters in August.  The audience was laughing so hard at some scenes/lines that sometimes we didn’t even hear the next few lines spoken.  I’ve watched it a few more times with others and they have all laughed, too.

The premise is that four thieves perform a jewel heist, but end up getting seen by an elderly woman out walking her dogs.  The jewels are hidden, but the leader Georges (Tom Georgeson) and his assistant Ken (Michael Palin) shift the jewels to another hiding spot because Georges does not trust the other two – Otto (Kevin Kline) and Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis).  They are Americans.  They have also told Georges and Ken that they are brother and sister, but in reality they are lovers.  They lied because they wanted to leave open the possibility of Wanda trying to seduce one or both of them.

As it turns out, Georges was right; Otto and Wanda do try to go back for the jewels.  When they find they are gone, Otto turns in Georges to the authorities.  Georges’ lawyer Archie (John Cleese) becomes involved in all of this when Otto suspects that Georges has told Archie where the jewels are hidden.  Wanda starts using her charms on Archie, which makes Otto insanely jealous.  In reality, it’s Ken who knows the location – something the others finally come to realize.  Meanwhile, Georges has ordered Ken to kill the elderly woman who is the lone witness.

Much of the humor in the film is broad, especially Kevin Kline’s character.  He hates all Brits, so being trapped in an entire country of them is a nightmare for him.  He is insultingly rude to just about all of them.  There is also a lot of humor in Ken’s attempts to kill the witness.  He is an animal lover, and his failures to kill her always seem to end up going horrifically wrong for him.

The funny orgasm scene is courtesy of Kevin Kline.  He and Wanda are having sex and he makes the most screwed up faces when he is having his orgasm.  There were three or four women in the theater audience who especially laughed very hard at this.  I think they had seen similar faces themselves from their husbands/boyfriends.  Reportedly, Jamie Lee Curtis had to hide her own face during the scene because she couldn’t stop laughing at Kline.

A Fish Called Wanda is not just a two-dimensional comedy, though.  Amidst all the larger jokes are a whole bunch of smaller touches.  At one point, Archie is robbing his own house (it makes sense when you watch the movie) and he stops to take the time to break a knickknack that is on his mantel.  He makes a little “Yes!” motion with his arm and you can tell that he’s probably hated the thing for years, but his wife had bought it and insisted it stay on the mantel.

Another touch comes right at the end of the movie (no spoilers).  The word “FIN” appears, which is what is placed at the end of French films to indicate it is the end.  Of course, fishes have fins, so this is a final nod to the title character.  This movie also has the funniest (and probably slowest) “I’m coming to kill you” scene in history.

One note – the four principal people (Cleese, Palin, Kline, and Curtis) reunited nine years later for a film titled Fierce Creatures.  This is not a sequel to A Fish Called Wanda, nor is it related to it in any way.  Unfortunately, it is nowhere near as funny, either.

A lot of the humor in A Fish Called Wanda is on the “politically incorrect” or “twisted” side, but even if these kinds of things bother you from time to time you should still give this movie a try.  I consider it one of the funniest movies ever made and I give it my highest recommendation.

Chip’s Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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19 comments:

  1. Definitely one of the funniest movies ever.

    I love Kevin Kline as Otto.

    "You know what your problem is... you don't like winners." "Winners" "Winners" "Winners like... North Vietnam" "SHUT UP! We did not lose Vietnam, it was a tie" "Oh yes you did" "Oh no we didn't" "Oh yes you did, they whooped your hide. Boy, they whooped it real good".

    "ASSHOLE!!!!"

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  2. I still quote this movie all the time.

    "Apes don't read philosophy."

    "Yes, they do, Otto. They just don't understand it."

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    1. That's actually one of my favorite quotes.

      "and the London Underground is not a political movement...I looked it up."

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  3. You've got wonderful bones, great eyes, and you dress really interestingly.

    Every time Ken hits on Otto, I'm beside myself laughing. I laugh just *thinking* about this movie.

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    1. "I laugh just *thinking* about this movie."

      Agreed. I was smiling through most of the writing of the review. I had to restrain myself from not extending it a lot with funny lines. I'm glad people are mentioning their favorites in the comments.

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  4. Good review Chip. I remember when I watched this film about 3 years ago, I laughed my ass off but I barely remember much from it, except for Kline's hilarious performance. The guy just had so much fun and manic energy throughout, that it's easy to see why he won an Oscar in the first place. Shame he hasn't done much with his talent as much as he should have.

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    1. "I barely remember much from it"

      You're actually in a great place to watch it again and get surprised by all the jokes. There are times I wish I could watch a movie again as if it was for the first time.

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  5. To me it gets funnier everytime I see it. So much of the hilarity is subtle and I keep discovering new things.
    The first time I saw it was on a ferry on the way to England in 9th grade. In the middle of the film the movie suffered a power failure and stopped, blacked out in the middle of the sea for an hour. Obviously this is most of what I remember from my first viewing.
    I later read that someone (not on the boat!) had died from a heart attack laughing from the movie. That should be a quality stamp, though not for him.

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    1. I've heard of an urban legend of a man who died laughing at a scene, too. Don't know if it's true or not.

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    2. I read that the man in question used to stick french fries up his nose to make his family laugh, and when the film got to that scene, the guy started thinking about his family and laughing at both the movie and his memories. And he had a preexisting condition. Then died. Sad.

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  6. 5 out of 5! I love this film too, one of my favorite comedies, really quotable. Those who love animals may be a bit offended by it, though? The word “FIN” , I must have missed that joke.

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    1. Sometimes even English language films use "FIN" instead of "THE END", but those are usually stuffy, uptight films that take themselves too seriously. It's just my own interpretation, but I saw the use of it here as a joke, rather than something that was supposed to be serious.

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  7. Nice review of an excellent comedy. It's always fun to experience a movie in a packed theater where the entire audience is completely engaged.

    Interesting side note about Kevin Kline... Several years back, I remember reading one film critic's comments about how Kline always seemed to wear a mustache for comedic roles, but not for his dramatic roles. It would be an interesting study to see if this holds true for his entire filmography.

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    1. Interesting. I'd have to look into that to see. I do know that the last film I saw Kline in - the 2009 drama Queen to Play - he has a moustache. He has a beard, too, so maybe the critic meant a moustache only.

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  8. Nothing in this film is funnier to me than John Cleese speaking Russian while undressing.

    Except, perhaps, "You pompous, stuck-up, snot-nosed, English, giant, twerp, scumbag, f**k-face, d**khead, asshole."

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    1. Another Cleese/Kline moment I loved was Cleese's quiet freakout in front of his wife when Kline's character pops out from behind some furniture and starts making up a story about what is going on.

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  9. Definitely politically incorrect and twisted, and insanely hilarious. I saw this when it first came out, and I've seen it a handful of times since. Otto was hysterical as the quintessential ugly American. Love the way he'd always drive on the wrong side of the road because he was too dumb to pick up on the fact that the British do it differently -- and yell "ASSHOLE!!!" while barely averting a head-on collision. And John Cleese as the uptight, sexually repressed Brit. Completely inappropriate, hilarious stuff.

    "Apes do not read philosophy!"

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    1. "Yes, they do. They just don't understand it."

      This seems to be a fun line for many people.

      Thanks for your comments.

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