L'uomo che sapeva troppo poco

Wally Ritchie flies from America to visit his brother in London for his birthday. However James has a business meeting and needs Wally out of the way for the evening. He books Wally onto a new murder-evening style experience where you get to play the character of an secret agent or the like. However Wally answers the wrong phone call and is mistaken for hitman Spenser. Following the instructions of the call, Wally becomes involved in a plot to start the cold war again by killing a mix of Ambassadors. Blissfully unaware Wally sets out to foil the plot.

This is one of those films that I'd kept meaning to see for ages but never got round to it. So when I finally did I maybe had too high expectations for it. So for the first 20 minutes I was a little impatient and was bothered that I wasn't really enjoying it or laughing very much. However once I got past this I relaxed and started to enjoy it.

The plot is mush and even if you take it seriously, all the pieces don't fit together and the plot doesn't make a lot of sense. However ignore all this plot nonsense – this is all about Wally stumbling from one misunderstanding to another lucky occurrence. We're not in the realms of classic comedy here and it certainly isn't hilarious. Rather it's funny and enjoyable – in that, even when I wasn't smiling I still had a fixed grin on my face.

Murray is the film's saviour. He stumbles around so very well and makes even the most basic misunderstanding funny. Gallagher is a passable straightman and Walley-Kilmer is decent but really suffers from having to share a screen with Murray. A fleet of British faces make up the rest of the cast – from Molina, Wilson, Woodeson to the sublime John Thomson and faces like Dexter Fletcher and `that guy offa Family Affairs'. To be honest it's all a bit distracting having so many `oh, that's ……' and you do have to try and get past it.

Overall this isn't the funniest thing you'll ever see, but it is enjoyable and will make you smile for 90 minutes, even if the belly laughs are less often than you'd like. Murray runs the show and brings laughs out of the least inspired routines. Well worth a watch if you're in a silly, undemanding mood.

Bill Murray's deadpan humor makes this a movie that is fun to watch even 20+ years later. What makes it even funnier is the length that modern shows have gone to in making "reality shows". The stereotypical Russian, British, Chinese, German and American roles make for great laughs that have been lost in today's politically correct humorless world.

I love comedies, especially spoofs, and action and spy movies. This has all of that. This was so much funnier than Steve Martin trying to reinvent Inspector Clouseau in 2006

Anybody who didn't enjoy this movie didn't get it... it was one of the most hilarious parodies I've ever seen. But, perhaps the circumstances of my initial viewing overly influenced my opinion. On a business trip to DC in 1998, I saw "The Game" with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn on the way out... great movie, but very heavy and deep. However on the way back, this movie was playing. Based on initial reviews I wasn't expecting much, but watching it was like someone purposely made a funny version of The Game, and I probably annoyed my fellow passengers as I was laughing so hard. I thought Murray was at his best, not unlike Chevy Chase in the Fletch movies (shame they didn't make more of those), as they were both in their comical element.

The coincidental (or perhaps not) pairing of these two films really added to my enjoyment of both. On a cold rainy weekend, I strongly recommend renting both and watching them in the same order I did… you won't be disappointed!

Jon Amiel's "The Man Who Knew Too Little" is one of the funniest movies that keeps the viewer in a laughing state all the time. Mr. Amiel shows an affinity to comedy as he takes us along for a fun ride into this amusing movie. The film is based on the funny Robert Farrar book, who also adapted the material for the screen.

This film is a sort of comedy of errors in which an innocent man is drawn into an international conspiracy that he has no clue is going on around him because his brother, in order to get him away from his dinner party, decides to treat him to a performance of a play in which the viewer is part of the show.

Little does Wally Ritchie realize what he has gotten into. That's the basic premise for the film, which works well because Wally doesn't suspect what he's involved in. So he goes along for the fun of it, thinking nothing about the bad guys that are trying to get rid of him, for real.

Bill Murray proves he is one of the best comedy actors working today. The sequence involving Mr. Murray dancing with a Russian folk group at the hotel where something terrible is set to occur is just pure perfection. Mr. Murray is a likable actor and never makes himself obnoxious in any situation. He is a delight to watch.

The rest of the cast is good. Peter Gallagher is Wally's brother. Joanne Whalley makes a perfect femme fatale. Alfredo Molina has some excellent moments as Boris, the butcher, the man who wants to eliminate Wally out of the picture.

"The Man Who Knew Too Little" is a fun film to watch thanks to Jon Amiel.

The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997)

There are those who think Bill Murray can do no wrong, that he has an impeccable comic flair and intelligence that drive even mediocre fare. And I'm one of them.

And this is relatively humdrum stuff on one level--though the basic idea of spoofing a spy superstar is as old and reliable as James Bond himself. (I mean, Bond spoofs were around when Sean Connery was still 007.) And the writing is really very witty here, giving two prongs forward in this mostly funny, always fast affair.

That is--I laughed a lot! That's the goal. The cold war themes of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. going head to head were old even in 1997 but of course not old for James Bond, and this does harken back somehow to the original. Murray plays a classic type--the hero who succeeds by accident. Often, it's the absurdity and illogic of this odd hero that makes him successful, surprising the professionals and seeming brazen and original. And so he is.

The plot is simple--some bad guys have a bomb that's going to go off in five hours. We know that at the start, and so the rest is loaded with anticipation and dread as the deadline nears. We also know (in this sort of movie) that no harm will come to Murray's cheerful, doltish American type. So the race against the clock is a series of gags and spoofs and lucky twists, all good for laughs. Murray is the key to it all, playing the naive participant with that uncanny timing and innocent face too well, over and over. If it were only about Murry this would be a 10 star masterpiece. The rest of the cast, and the eventual inevitability of the plot, hold it back, though. So it is what it is, still a great romp.

You want more than that? You won't get it. But why would you? Enjoy.