Movie Review: The Fog (1980)

Genre: Supernatural Horror  

Director: John Carpenter  

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins, Hal Holbrook, Janet Leigh, John Houseman  

Running Time: 90 minutes  

Synopsis: The small coastal community of Antonio Bay is about to celebrate its 100th anniversary. Lighthouse radio host Stevie (Adrienne Barbeau), church leader Father Malone (Hal Holbrook), and community booster Kathy (Janet Leigh) are preparing for the big day, while hitchhiker Elizabeth (Jamie Lee Curtis) partners with fishing boat owner Nick (Tom Atkins). But the quaint town is built on a dark foundation: a possibly intentional foggy ship wreck 100 years ago resulted in the death of many mariners. Now as midnight approaches, a thick glowing fog appears, and death lurks within.

What Works Well: John Houseman provides an epic prologue with a campfire legend to scare the kids, a perfect foundation for director and co-writer John Carpenter to craft a fine small town ghost story. The residents-under-threat are established with admirable efficiency, leaving plenty of room to build a threatening mood punctuated by several effective jump scares. Hal Holbrook contributes a foreboding elaboration on the town's shameful secret, setting the stage for a frantic third act. The visual effects and cinematography are often outstanding.

What Does Not Work As Well: The absence of a main protagonist dilutes focus among three or four characters. Even within the supernatural context, quite a few inconsistencies bedevil the plot, including the fate of the treasure on that shipwreck from 100 years ago.

Key Quote:

Stevie (over the radio): There's something in the fog!

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Movie Review: Prom Night (1980)

Genre: Slasher Horror  

Director: Paul Lynch  

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Leslie Nielsen  

Running Time: 93 minutes  

Synopsis: In the prologue, kids playing a cruel game of hide-and-seek in an abandoned covenant cause the death of ten year-old Robin. Six years later in the present, the now teen-aged kids are getting ready for high school graduation. Robin's sister Kim (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her brother Alex are part of the school community, and their father Mr. Hammond (Leslie Nielsen) is the principal. An escaped convict is stalking the town, an outcast student threatens violence, and Kim's nemesis Wendy has disruptive intentions. Eventually a mask-wearing assailant unleashes mayhem.

What Works Well: The opening prologue promises a level of gargoylian horror that the rest of the film never comes close to matching, but one late-in-the-day shot featuring a disembodied head deserves credit.

What Does Not Work As Well: This Canadian production is best known for featuring Jamie Lee Curtis in her prime scream queen era, but offers nothing else. The stiff actors all appear a good ten years older than their roles, the writing is lazy, and the high school environment is a tired re-hash of stereotypes. The horror scenes, when they finally arrive, are tension-free, filmed in murky darkness, and edited into a mess. Instead of delivering impact, every intended highlight is extended into boredom. Worst of all is an incessant fixation on disco dancing and bad disco music. Maybe the hidden message was all about the horror of disco's final days?

Key Quote:

Kim: You seem a little anxious, Wendy. By the way, who are you going with tonight?

Wendy: It's not who you go with, honey. It's who takes you home.

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Movie Review: Halloween (2018)

A slasher horror movie, Halloween is a direct sequel to the classic original. Investing in a feisty grandmother as a protagonist is courageous, but the film is repeatedly stabbed by mundane cliches.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is still traumatized by the events of Halloween night 40 years ago, when as a teenager she barely survived a killing rampage by the indestructible, silent, and mask-wearing Michael Meyers. Laurie has dedicated her life to prepare for her next encounter with Michael, an obsession that has damaged her relationship with daughter Karen (Judy Greer), although teenaged granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) is more understanding.

Michael is in a prison hospital under the care of Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer), who is intent on getting into the mind of a killer. Michael escapes by causing a prison transfer bus to crash, and starts a new killing spree on Halloween night. Sheriff's deputy Frank Hawkins (Will Patton) tries to stop the murderous rampage, but Michael is destined for another showdown with Laurie.

Properly aging the characters by 40 years and placing Jamie Lee Curtis' return as Laurie Strode at the heart of the action are welcome highlights. Curtis is by far the best thing at the disposal of director and co-writer David Gordon Green, but after a promising start she is unfortunately underused. Too much of Halloween is repetitive and derivative, Michael Meyers' never-explained superhuman strength ensuring he carves a routine path towards the predictable final confrontation.

Along the way plenty of potentially interesting characters and silly twists are introduced and summarily eliminated, including a couple of podcasters, a babysitter, her boyfriend, and a doctor far from worthy of the name. Other side-stories that go nowhere include Allyson's tiff with a boyfriend and a tangle with a dorky classmate, all the dead-ends superficially delivered with a distinct lack of conviction.

Grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter were always going to come together to battle evil, but it's a surprisingly inert climax, a long search-in-the-dark sequence killing momentum as a kitchen counter hiding a bunker endlessly swings open and closed. It's 40 years later, but this Halloween is all tired tricks and too few treats.



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Movie Review: Perfect (1985)

A drama and romance, Perfect awkwardly attempts to wedge two unrelated and underdeveloped stories into the same narrative. Predictably, both fail.

New York-based Rolling Stones investigative reporter Adam Lawrence (John Travolta) is attempting to secure an interview with businessman Joe McKenzie, who is under investigation for drug dealing. Concurrently Adam receives permission from his editor Mark Roth (Jann Wenner) to pursue a story about fitness clubs as the new singles bars. He travels to Los Angeles and visits the Sports Connection club, where he meets aerobics instructor Jessie Wilson (Jamie Lee Curtis).

She is not interested in granting Adam an interview because of a past bad experience with the press, but club regulars Sally (Marilu Henner) and Linda (Laraine Newman) are thrilled to be part of his story. Adam and Jessie start a romance, and McKenzie finally agrees to be interviewed, thrusting Adam into the middle of a high profile FBI investigation. He has to decide how to write both stories, and risks damaging his reputation and relationships.

Featuring endless scenes of women in leotards (with a few sprinkled men) jumping up and down, thrusting their hips, and gyrating their pelvises, Perfect is a mess. Director and co-writer James Bridges seems to know both his stories are unworthy of cinematic treatments, and so takes the easy way out by parking his cameras at the gym and sweating it out. One of the many problems is that all the extras bouncing in the aerobics classes already appear quite fit rather than working their way to fitness, an obvious Hollywoodian choice. A generic and forgettable soundtrack does not help.

The McKenzie plot never progresses beyond cursory headlines before suddenly occupying centre stage in a final, incongruous act. The revelation that fitness clubs are a mingling place for singles with over-clocked hormones starts and ends with a shrug. Not newsworthy and far from a basis for big screen drama, it is no surprise when the magazine fumbles the supposed exposé into a sordid hack job.

The film is saved from a total loss by the two photogenic stars. John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis both exude cool charisma and provide good visual distraction as they grapple with an asinine script. Travolta's Adam Lawrence is exceptionally poorly written, falling into the huge gap between sensitive and contemptible. Curtis is provided with a half-decent back-story and convinces as an energetic and confident instructor riding the wave of a fitness craze.

Perfect expends enormous physical energy, but stays in one place.



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Movie Review: Knives Out (2019)

A whodunnit crime mystery spiced with humour, Knives Out features an ensemble cast having fun in a convoluted Clue-like milieu.

In Massachusetts, celebrated and wealthy crime mystery author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead by apparent suicide, after the family had gathered at his mansion to celebrate his 85th birthday. Police detectives interrogate the family members, while private investigator Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is anonymously hired to investigate whether a murder was committed.

Potential motives for murder are soon revealed. Harlan was about to expose the extramarital affair of his son-in-law Richard Drysdale (Don Johnson), husband of Harlan's daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis). He was also terminating financial support for daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette); cutting entitled grandson Ransom (Chris Evans) out of his will; and firing his son Walt (Michael Shannon) as head of his publishing company.

But Benoit takes greatest interest in Harlan's quiet nurse and close confidant Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas). The daughter of an illegal immigrant, she is well liked by all the family members and incapable of lying, and Benoit trusts her to help connect the dots.

A throwback to old-fashioned Agatha Christie-type mysteries, Knives Out presents a rich cast of characters, plenty of reasons to suspect everyone, layers of lying, and clever detective work. Writer and director Rian Johnson assembles the puzzle with a light touch, the film never taking itself too seriously. A few good pinches of well-placed humour help to keep the mood airy.

The first two thirds of the film, mostly confined to the mansion, are excellent. Johnson expeditiously introduces all the characters, gives most of them reasons to kill, and recreates snippets of the evening before the death when Harlan was clearly cleaning house and putting his affairs in order, threatening the economic future of many heirs in the process.

The final act unravels with the late introduction of Chris Evans' Ransom characters followed by an ill-advised and poorly executed blackmail sub-plot, the film hitting the road and losing its assured footing in the process.

Within the labyrinth of greed and backstabbing fueling the mystery, Johnson does include snide contemporary social commentary. Marta is an immigrant and the one seemingly pure soul, her work ethic placing her at the center of the family and yet outside it. Harlan's will upturns everyone's expectations, forcing a fundamental reassessment of the economic power dynamic.

With a star name is almost every role each performer gets the one scene to shine, and they are all adequate with a hint of theatricality. Daniel Craig works hard with limited success at an exotic accent to project a vaguely foreign detective. Ana de Armas delivers by far the film's best performance as the conscientious nurse Marta, combining sly panicked comic timing with an ability to say plenty by not saying anything at all. When everyone else is busy revealing sordid secrets, it's wise to listen more and talk less.

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Movie Review: True Lies (1994)

A tongue-in-cheek spy thriller with a big dose of domestic intrigue, True Lies combines a big budget action spectacle with the travails of a married couple keeping secrets from each other.

Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) lives a double life. He works as a globe-trotting spy for Omega Sector, a national security counterterrorism agency, but back in Washington DC his wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and daughter Dana (Eliza Dushku) believe that he is a boring computer systems salesman. Harry and his partner Albert Gibson (Tom Arnold) uncover a plot by glamorous art dealer Juno Skinner (Tia Carrere) and jihadist terrorist Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) to detonate stolen nuclear warheads in the United States.

Meanwhile Helen is getting bored with being physically and emotionally abandoned by Harry, and is slowly falling prey to the smarmy charms of used car salesman Simon (Bill Paxton) pretending to be a spy. Harry uncovers Helen's near-infidelity and without revealing his true identity provides her with a fake mission to boost the level of excitement in her life. When Aziz's men intervene and capture both Harry and Helen, the married couple have to confront each other and disrupt the terrorist plot.

Director James Cameron reunites with Schwarzenegger, and while True Lies is far from recreating the magic of the first two Terminator movies, it does deliver a silly fun time. Inspired by the French film La Totale! by Claude Zidi, everything is exaggerated with an overdose of stunts, destruction and special effects. The final 45 minutes is a non-stop cascading climax featuring explosions, endless firefights, rocket launchers, Harrier jets, helicopters, one blown up Florida bridge and several severely damaged high rises. None of it is subtle or even smart, but it is breathlessly entertaining.

What sets True Lies apart is a middle act that takes a break from the terrorist plot and delves into the troubled married life of Harry and Helen, In turn awkward and intriguing, Helen's clumsy drift towards having an affair to add excitement to her dull life with Harry adds an ironic element. What follows is original, funny and disturbing, as Harry's treatment of Helen certainly provides her with a thrill but also borders on abusive.

The rest of the film is James Bond on a really big budget and a little bit of laughing gas. Schwarzenegger slips comfortably into the suave spy persona, and even enjoys a tango twirl with Carrere at a swish Swiss villa bad guy gathering spot. The terrorist conspiracy is short-changed Bond-style into the barest of caricature characters hissing evil, but this being seven years ahead of September 11 2001, Cameron deserves some credit for predicting the zeal of jihadist groups.

Supporting Schwarzenegger is a game Jamie Lee Curtis who adds immeasurably to the film in a role that's much more than the token wife. Tom Arnold and Bill Paxton are the main sources of humour, while Charlton Heston pops up in a short role as the head of Omega Sector before disappearing entirely.

At two hours and twenty minutes the film is sloppily edited and much longer than it needs to be, Cameron extending almost every scene beyond what is necessary. True Lies is over the top in every respect, a case of too much of everything still providing something for everyone.

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Movie Review: You Again (2010)

A bland retribution comedy, You Again has neither laughs nor romance, and proceeds to waste a good cast.

In her high school years Marni (Kristen Bell) was an outcast ugly duckling, regularly and mercilessly bullied by J-J (Odette Yustman), the coolest cheerleader at the school. Six years later, Marni has moved to Los Angeles and blossomed into a confident public relations executive. Marni returns home to the house of her parents Gail and Mark (Jamie Lee Curtis and Victor Garber) to attend the wedding of her brother Will (James Wolk), and is shocked to discover that Will's fiancée is none other than J-J, who now goes by Joanna.

Joanna pretends to not remember Marni at all, and presents herself as a kind-hearted family-oriented charitable do-gooder. The situation gets more complex when Joanna's aunt Ramona (Sigourney Weaver) arrives ahead of the wedding, as Gail and Ramona were best frenemies during their high school years. Ramona is now a high powered owner of a luxury hotel chain, while Gail, who was the most popular girl in school, has settled for domestic bliss. In the face of Joanna's charm assault Marni feels belittled and starts to regress into her high school victim persona, and decides to do all she can to unmask Joanna's true character and disrupt her brother's wedding day.

Directed by Andy Fickman, You Again has a couple of good ideas but does not do much with them. The long shadows cast by high school experiences should be a rich environment for both comedy and personal growth, and Marni wilting under the pressure of being back home and playing second fiddle to Joanna is an interesting enough set-up. But Fickman and screenwriter Moe Jelline default fairly quickly to witless juvenile antics and childish execution.

The script is nowhere near sharp enough to overcome the characters' wide-eyed cluelessness, and the film is caught in no man's land where outlandish actions are devoid of any sense of irony or satire. The dull lowlights include physical altercations, dishes being thrown, food dumped on heads and people pushed into swimming pools, the latter prosaic climax telegraphed in bold letters.

The cast has too much talent for the material. Kristen Bell is game and commits herself to the role, but cannot pull the film out of the doldrums. Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis enjoy a few dueling moments but then succumb to the tedious surroundings.

You Again flickers with some promise but is extinguished by listless delivery.

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The Movies Of Jamie Lee Curtis

All movies starring Jamie Lee Curtis and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Halloween (1978)

The Fog (1980)

Prom Night (1980)

Escape From New York (1981, narrator, uncredited)

Trading Places (1983)

Perfect (1985)

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

True Lies (1994)

The Tailor Of Panama (2001)

You Again (2010)

Halloween (2018)

Knives Out (2019)

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

All Ace Black Movie Blog Reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Trading Places (1983)

A social comedy set in the world of business, Trading Places is an early vehicle for Eddie Murphy's burgeoning talents and an entertaining romp through the lineage versus social environment debate.

In Philadelphia, filthy rich and racist brothers Randolph and Mortimer Duke (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche) own a large commodities trading firm. To settle a bet about nature versus nurture, they decide to ruin the life of their firm's haughty general manager Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) while elevating streetwise bum Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) into his role. Valentine is bailed out of jail, installed in Winthorpe's swanky apartment, scrubbed down, provided with the services of butler Coleman (Denholm Elliott), and given free reign to run the firm.

Meanwhile, Winthorpe is framed for petty theft and drug trafficking, locked out of his apartment and has his accounts frozen. His fiancée Penelope (Kristin Holby) dumps him and he falls in with prostitute Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis), the only person to believe his story. Billy Ray thrives in his new environment while a desperate Winthorpe starts contemplating a life of crime. But once the two men learn of the Duke brothers' chicanery, they join forces and plot to turn the tables.

Directed by John Landis as a loose modernization of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, Trading Places followed 48 Hrs. to help launch Eddie Murphy into superstardom. The film enjoys plenty of laughs, foul language and a deep cast, while the Duke brothers enliven the villainy meter and present a boo-worthy representation of the worst that the 1 percent have to offer.

Murphy lets loose and dominates the film, easily upstaging the top-billed Aykroyd. The character of Billy Ray Valentine may be altogether implausible as a rough diamond too easy to polish from street bum to corporate suit, but Murphy makes the most of it, his motormouth and quick-witted presence overcoming any character gaps.

Trading Places is at its best in the scenes catapulting Billy Ray from a prison cell to the corner office, while Winthorpe is simultaneously drop-kicked from a cushy upper crust life to a prostitute's derelict apartment. The Dukes play the role of hidden puppet masters and dramatically change two unsuspecting lives, creating plenty of room for comedy. Billy Ray can't hide his instincts to steal property from his own new palatial home, while Winthorpe's downfall starts with a petty theft set-up at the stuffiest of men's clubs. As Winthorpe nears bottom, Ophelia offers hope that among the downtrodden, there is more and better humanity than within the ranks of back-stabbing crooks in suits.

The final third of the film gets away from Landis and drifts off-topic, leaving the social aspects dangling in search of more adolescent laughs. While the wild train ride featuring Winthorpe, Billy Ray and dirty tricks operative Clarence Beeks (Paul Gleason) is fun, it also has little to do with the premise. And Landis is caught with a climax on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange that may be technically feasible but proves beyond the director's capabilities to explain. Landis settles for not bothering, and is satisfied with a rush to retribution.

Despite moments of sloppiness Trading Places is edgy fun, a glossy rags to riches meets riches to rags laugh fest given extra spark by an emerging comic star.

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Movie Review: Halloween (1978)

The small, independent B-film that became a sensational international success and launched the slasher flick genre, Halloween is a brilliant piece of compact film making. John Carpenter creates a masterpiece of mood, mounting tension and frenzied horror, all embellished with an unsettling killer's point-of-view perspective.

In the small suburban town of Haddonfield, Illinois, 6 year old Michael Myers stabs his sister Judith to death on October 31 1963. Committed to a high security mental institution, he slips into a seemingly catatonic, non-communicative state. At age 21 Michael (Nick Castle) is deemed to be a low risk and transferred to a hospital, much to the horror of his doctor, the psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasence). Michael soon breaks out and makes his way back to Haddonfield, killing anyone who gets in his way. Once Dr. Loomis realizes that Michael is on the loose, he gives chase.

Back in his hometown, a masked and threatening Michael starts stalking reserved teenager Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), and her more outgoing friends Annie (Nancy Kyes) and Lynda (P.J. Soles). It's Halloween night again, Laurie has babysitting duties while Annie and Lynda want to have fun with their boyfriends. The streets are crawling with trick-or-treating kids, Dr. Loomis and Sheriff Brackett (Charles Cyphers) are frantically looking for Michael, but the bodies start to stack up as Michael goes on a murderous rampage.

Halloween was produced on a $350,000 budget, and generated $70 million at the box office. Hollywood was awakened to the profitable potential of easy to make horror films, and Michael Myers became the first serial killer of teens to spawn a franchise of sequels, soon to be followed by Jason (Friday The 13th), Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and a host of lessor imitators.

Halloween popularized the essential building blocks of the slasher genre, including the larger than life killer who is next-to-impossible to kill, a world populated mostly by teens, and the final girl trope. The film also established some essential rules for who lives and who dies. Laurie is polite, modest and avoids boys and sexual adventurism. She also takes her baby-sitting responsibilities seriously. The victims tend to be more outgoing, less responsible, chasing boys, and quicker to enjoy sex. Poor Judith gets next to no screen time: she has sex with her boyfriend and dies within the first few minutes of the genre's birth, the first of countless girls to pay the ultimate price for on-screen carnal pleasure.

Carpenter co-wrote Halloween with Debra Hill, and the script celebrates its simplicity. The first act establishes Michael's background (monster is born); the second act is all about stalking (monster prepares to strike); the third act is a frantic kill-fest, with Michael picking off his victims and closing in on Laurie (monster on the loose). Michael is the impersonation of the bogeyman from every child's nightmare, his mask rendering him faceless and his lumbering, imposing gait seemingly unstoppable. And it's all happening on Halloween, the kids under Laurie's care getting a close-up view of a real demon unleashed on the harrowing night.

Halloween is filled with classic, unforgettable moments. The opening single-take sequence through Michael's first-person view is jarring at many levels, the viewer forced to see the world through a menacing killer's eyes. The reveal that Michael, having just slaughtered his sister with a massive knife, is just a kid, is a shocking moment, Carpenter lingering on parents staring incredulously at their young, murderous son. The stalking scenes ratchet up the tension through Michael's sheer presence, as he starts popping up everywhere that Laurie and her friends want to be, behind the bushes, under the laundry line, across the street, standing, observing, plotting, threatening. Nothing violent happens for much of the middle half of the film; just an exquisite build-up of tension.

Carpenter's simple musical theme demonstrated how 10 notes on the piano can conjure up a mood of creeping cataclysm, and adds a suffocating sense of dread to the unfolding carnage. Donald Pleasence was the one known actor Carpenter was able to afford, and he provides Halloween with an anchor of adult sanity, the one observer who forecasts Michael's evil intentions and swings into action to try and save a community. As the daughter of Janet Leigh, moviedom's most famous victim of a deranged murderer, Jamie Lee Curtis was perhaps fated to play Laurie. This was her film debut, and she went on to reign as the "scream queen" in a series of horror films before transitioning to bigger and better roles.

Simple, effective and creative, Halloween slashes its way to classic status.

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Movie Review: The Tailor Of Panama (2001)

A disappointing spy film adaptation of a John Le Carre novel, The Tailor Of Panama tries hard to create a steamy stranger in a strange land vibe, but it is undermined by a hollow centre and a premise that is close to ridiculous.

British intelligence agent Andy Osnard (Pierce Brosnan) operates under diplomatic cover, and after flubbing an assignment is reassigned to Panama. Upon arrival he makes contact with Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), a tailor peddling high quality suits to the ruling class. Pendel has a shady past and money problems but terrific contacts with both the powerful elite of Panama and the shady opposition. Osnard presses him into service to obtain and reveal sensitive information about future plans for the Panama Canal and an emerging underground revolutionary movement.

But Osnard is playing a dangerous game way beyond the normal confines of diplomatic intelligence gathering. He attempts to charm Pendel's wife Louisa (Jamie Lee Curtis) into revealing information that she has access to from her work for the Canal authority, and he keeps the British Embassy staff at bay by seducing Francesca Dean (Catherine McCormack), one of the Ambassador's key assistants. Osnard finally pressures Pendel into revealing plans for upcoming upheaval in the country, setting in motion an international chess game from which only one person will benefit.

Not many characters are likable in The Tailor of Panama, least of all Andy Osnard. Brosnan attempts to bring his ice cool Bond persona into Panama, but in the absence of a suitable villain or a nefarious plot as a counterweight, it's not a fair fight. Taking advantage of less sophisticated locals and run-of-the-mill diplomats may satisfy Osnard's ego, but contributes nothing to an engaging narrative. Rush is more absorbing as the tailor Pendel, but his eagerness to please and the ease with which he is manipulated is unconvincing.

The highly dubious plot developments do not help. Large amounts of international money and military hardware are set in motion based on flimsy and uncorroborated intelligence, and as we now know, only neo-conservatives in the White House with dreams of eternally controlling global oil supplies and avenging assassination plots targeting their daddies can pull that off.

The Tailor Of Panama only has it's setting to fall back on, and director John Boorman tries hard to evoke a seedy Casablanca style mood of foreign intrigue, with Casablanca even being mentioned in one exchange of dialogue. But this is not the 1940's, World War Two isn't raging, Pierce Brosnan is not Humphrey Bogart, and the future of the free world is not at stake. The Tailor Of Panama attempts to put on a power suit, but there is no hiding the intellectual vacuum between its ears.

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Movie Review: A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

One of the best comedies ever put to film, A Fish Called Wanda represents the apex of John Cleese's career. The comic genius co-wrote, produced and of course stars in the film, a mad caper about four crooks back-stabbing each other in search of stolen diamonds in London, and the pompous English lawyer who unwittingly gets caught up in the plot.

George (Tom Georgeson) is the British criminal plot mastermind; Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis) his American lover and co-plotter; Otto (Kevin Kline) is the weapons man pretending to be Wanda's brother but he's her real lover; and Ken (Michael Palin) is the animal-loving Englishman with a brutal stutter, loyal to George but easily manipulated by all.

After pulling off the diamond theft and stashing the loot in a safe, Wanda and Otto double-cross George and get him arrested. Wanda is about to double-cross Otto and flee with the diamonds when she realizes that George has outwitted them and re-located the jewels. Much to Otto's horror, Wanda develops a plan to seduce George's lawyer Archie (Cleese) to try and learn where the diamonds are hidden, while from behind bars George sends Ken on a mission to eliminate the elderly lady whose testimony is crucial to convicting George.

It is rare enough for a movie to create one memorable comic evil character; in A Fish Called Wanda, Cleese creates a trio of distinctly memorable characters. Dubious as it is to make fun of a disability, Palin's stuttering Ken is one of the funniest characters ever to grace a movie. Some of his scenes are hilarious to the point of hysteria. Curtis is perfect as Wanda, alternating between schemer and seductress, with one unique character flaw: sudden extreme arousal at the sound of foreign languages.

Good as Palin and Curtis are, Kline is on another level of brilliance entirely. He unleashes Otto as a force of nature, an American criminal barging his way through London with a devastating combination of combat skills and colossal stupidity. While comedies rarely receive any Academy Award recognition, even the stodgy Academy got it right this time and recognized Kline with the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Having done the hard work of creating these characters and putting them in the hands of the terrific cast, Cleese has the relatively easy task of bringing to life Archie as the typical English lawyer, stuck in a loveless marriage and trying to maintain his composure while being seduced by Wanda and targeted by Otto.

In addition to being a straight-out comedy feeding off outstanding characters, A Fish Called Wanda also finds the time to poke fun at Americans, the English, and the relationship between the two countries. None of it is too serious, but Wanda and Otto do represent the freedom and aggression that the United States exports, and Archie has the typical political character of England: too easily seduced by America as represented by Wanda; while finding Otto's quick propensity for violence rather distasteful.

When creating an intellectual farce, it is too easy to lose balance and sink into either absurdity or self-importance. A Fish Called Wanda cuts through the water in a display of perfect harmony between hilarity and intelligence.

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