A Fish Called Wanda (1988) – 3/5

Not all about Wanda, but some solid comedic vision in here

„A Fish Called Wanda“ is a co-production between the United Kingdom and United States from 1988, so this film has its 35th anniversary, but this was not really the reason why it found its way back to the cinema for a brief while. I watched it on the occasion of a British film retrospective here and I do not regret going. The writer and director is Charles Crichton and he is no longer with us because he was already almost 80 when this got made, which means that in 2023 he would be somewhere around the oldest-living persons. He was nominated for two Oscars for his work here, his only two Oscar nominations and one was for writing and the other for directing. It is a bit surprising with him that this, so close to the end of his filmmaking career, is now by far his most known work while his other more see efforts come from the 1940s already. Anyway, it is also a bit of an exception that he wrote the screenplay. He was almost more of a full-on director, even if he has also producing credits and especially editing credits. According to imdb, the co-writer and co-director here is John Cleese, but he was „only“ nominated for the screenplay, so I guess that Crichton contributed more in terms of the direction. Cleese, however, is of course also a cast member here and the longer the film goes, the more significant his character becomes. He also scored a great deal of acting awards attention, like a BAFTA win and Golden Globe nomination. At the BAFTAs, it really looks like almost everybody with some screen time got in, except Tom Georgeson that is. Michael Palin also won for his role of a stuttering animal lover.

But only one from the bunch got in at the Academy Awards and that was Kevin Kline. Not only did he get in, he even won the category and that is quite something because he did not win any other award for his performance according to imdb. This has to be a total exception for acting Oscar winners. Absolutely unimaginable today. I guess it must have helped him that at the Oscars, like I just stated, nobody else from the cast got nominated, so all the love the Academy had for the film went to Kline and it was enough to succeed. Good for him. I don’t know if he was that great, but he played the role well and boy what he did with his eyes in one scene. Kline is still one of the younger cast members here, but also deep into his 70s now in the 2020s. From the characters right at the center of the story, only Jamie Lee Curtis is younger and under 70 still. The rest are already above 80. I remember Cleese, who is otherwise of course mostly known for Monty Python, came here to Germany a while ago or he planned to come, but the pandemic got in the way and I am not sure if he did come in the end then. But I hope that, if you read this review of mine not right away, but a few years delayed, you will still find all the cast members alive. With Jamie Lee Curtis, it should not be super difficult. She is doing well and actually once again peaking right now with her recent Oscar nomination and SAG Awards win. I am definitely not a fan of her though. Never liked her acting or her aura and this leaves a bit of a negative impact on me here.

But with the rest I cannot really complain too much. I will admit that the crime story with the missing diamonds did not blew me away, but if you watch the film from a comedy perspective, you will have a lot to laugh, at least every couple minutes, there is something in here that should make you laugh, for example the stalking towards the end by the totally not jealous character played by Kline. But boy, is he unkillable or what? He is even in the end outside the plane watching what is going on inside with his (former) lover and the British lawyer. After he got rolled over by this huge thingey. Unreal. What a survivalist, but good for him. At least something that he made it out of the film alive I guess, even if it was not really realistic anymore at the end. His comment on how he does not want anybody to call him stupid was a bit of a running gag too. Okay, it was not really a gag, but a recurring inclusion at least. Difficult to say what the funniest moment of them all was. A definite contender would be Palin’s character’s „Good.“ Or whatever he said when he understood what happened to Kline’s character in his childhood. Or what he was told that happened to him. We cannot say if this is true or if JLC just said it to get rid of some of the conflict. It was also funny when Palin’s character could speak normally all of a sudden then after having the hardest time in the end to spill out the name of the hotel where the diamonds are to be found. And not only is everybody hunting for the diamonds, but also the key inside a medallion plays a crucial role here and everybody is looking for it. This honestly could have been over much faster if the leader of the gang, who got arrested then after people snitched on him, had kept the precious gems in the safe where JLC’s and Kline’s character suspected they would be after the robbery. But nope.

Speaking of these two, I myself was never sure who JLC’s character was really romantically interested in. I guess you can say that at the beginning the answer would be nobody because she betrays George (Georgeson) and is ready to knock out Otto (Kline), so yea these men were wrong in thinking that she really adored them. Towards the end, it switched to Cleese’s lawyer character, even if I felt like she was not too impressed when he started kissing her all over, but maybe I was wrong. In any case, his talking in Russian and Italian surely helped. She has a soft spot for languages for sure and the references there when several characters try to charm here were the occasions when different languages were included here. Like the ones I just mentioned, but it is only just a few sentences always, nothing you need to understand in order to understand the movie. So, no subtitles needed. Oh and Otto sang even briefly in German. This language is not listed on imdb. It was the most politically incorrect moment of the film. I liked it. Not a bad tune. As for JLC’s character, I was a bit confused that she had the same name like the fish at the center of the story. If you even wanna call him that. He is on the poster there and maybe Georgeson should have been instead, even if it was a fine fish, but the parallel there between the animal and JLC’s character I did not really get, just like I also think they could have found a better title for this movie. I mean it is catchy for sure, but it does not really summarize the film well. What else can I add? Oh yes Stephen Fry is in this film, but just very, very briefly. Still awesome to see him. I think nobody else in the room recognized him from the ten people maybe. Of course, I am not in England. There, probably, 9 out of 10 would have recognized him immediately, even if he was only on the screen for a few seconds. One other fairly central inclusion to the story I can talk about here is the old lady with the dogs and how the stuttering character who loves animals tried to kill her on a few occasions. It is of course all about the irony that the (almost) traffic collision early on did not hurt her or her animals, but as he keeps trying to kill her because she is a witness and can identify his friend from the gang, the leader, the dogs keep dying through accidents because he of course wanted to kill the old lady, but couldn’t really because he is not cruel by nature. Still, he was happy then when he finally succeeds, even if it means to him that the last dog also died then.

Well, in a way he paid for what he did through how Kline’s character tortures him there by eating all the fish in the aquarium. Like not even frying them, but eating them alive. This was a bit cruel no kidding. We were suffering with Palin’s character. The latter was of course also suffering from several kinds of physical harm done to him before that. So there are no winners really, maybe JLC’s and Cleese’s character are when they head to South America in the end? Or Iceland. Far away anyway. But yeah, Kline’s character gets his punishment then too for what he did to the fish when Palin’s character approaches him on this huge vehicle and his gun won’t fire and he is stuck in the concrete. No getting away, but like I said, he made it out alive nonetheless. The only one who really dies then is the old lady, isn’t she? And her dogs. Poor souls. But yeah, this moment when Palin’s character there is about to run over the old lady was among the funniest from the film how he says „Revenge“ and another word a few moments later. He was perhaps the funniest of them all, that sniper uniform moment near the end was also comedy gold. Maybe, even if Palin’s character was the only one actually killing somebody in the film, he was still the most likable from the gang. Perhaps because of his speech impediment or because he was the only one without the intention to scam the others out of their money, even if he hated Kline’s character. So yeah, I would say this was a good film, but not a great movie overall. It is worth seeing, especially if it comes to a movie theater near you again, but otherwise seeing it on the small screen is fine too I guess. Seeing it once is probably enough though. I give the outcome here a thumbs-up because the good is far more frequent than the weak and probably also more frequent than the forgettable. The positive recommendation here was never really in doubt for me. Nice job by (almost) everybody involved. Oh and I have to mention the moment when one character pulls a pear out of another character’s mouth, also close to the end, this was such a funny sound effect, but it showed us really in a nutshell that this film, as most of the time with Cleese, perceived itself as much more of a comedy and not a gritty crime drama. The character’s flaws and occasionally almost gimmicky shenanigans made it even more obvious. This one is for the laughs.