A Fish Called Wanda

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Directed by Charles Crichton with uncredited work of John Cleese

Screenplay by John Cleese

Story by John Cleese and Charles Crichton

Stars: Jaime Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, John Cleese, Michael Palin and Tom Georgeson

Seeing that I was doing this "Birthday Blog-A-Thon" that tens of you are following, it was luck that A Fish Called Wanda is on constant rotation on Logo. I have seen bits and pieces of the movie since it was released. I wanted to see something light-hearted seeing all of the dark movies I have seen. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards and won Best Supporting Actor for Kevin Kline. I thought it was a solid movie despite its ridiculousness.

A team of thieves are going for the their last caper. The leader, George (Georgeson) wants to rip off a place for their precious diamonds so he could retire with his main squeeze, Wanda (Curtis). No the fish, the human. Wanda the fish belongs to the stuttering Ken (Palin). The new person coming into the mix is dim-witted Otto (Kline) who stakes him claim with the one of the team members. When the thieves double and triple cross each other to find the loot to leave the country things get complicated when George is arrested and has to be represented by Archie Leach (Cleese).

Normally, a movie about a bunch of con artists would be very predictable that they would stab each other in the back in order ahead. I know some things that were going to happen when they did, but a couple of things surprised me. The chemistry between Wanda the human and Archie was nice to see. I love the characters quirks like Wanda the human would almost orgasm by foreign languages or Otto trying to be spiritual with Nietzsche but doesn't uphold to his philosophy in the least bit.

Not that many comedies would get love at the Oscar buy Kevin Kline won over Martin Landau, River Phoenix or Sir Alec Guiness. Hmm... I enjoyed Otto very much. He tries so hard to be intellectual, but he is stupid plain and simple. Don't call him stupid, though. There were times that I laughed out loud and couldn't stop. Some jokes or gags fall flat. Maybe because of how the movie has aged in the past 25 years. Jaime Lee Curtis was very alluring and sexy in this movie. If I was wasn't strictly dickly, I would be all up in that.

P.S. There is nothing remotely gay about this movie, except for when Otto tries to distract Ken by confess his "feelings" for him.

My Rating