The Man Who Knew Too Little

1997 comedy

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Wally, a Blockbuster employee from Des Moines, travels on his birthday to visit his brother in England. His brother is smack in the middle of business and pays for Wally to participate in the Theater of Life, an improvisational theatrical performance with audience participation. Wally takes the wrong phone call, is mistaken for a spy, and winds up in the middle of an assassination plot.

The saddest thing is that this has less laughs than The Man Who Knew Too Much. A lot less laughs. No, I take that back. The saddest thing is how it almost seems like they are setting things up for a possible sequel at the end of this, and there really isn't even enough material for this first movie. It's pitiful. This one's got a cute premise, but it's lackadaisically written. Characters are jerked from one bit of comic mischief to the next, and it doesn't take too long to figure out that there's just nothing here. Bill Murray seems to be going through the motions, hoping to coast on his Bill Murray fumes or something, and with a decent script, that would have worked fine. With nothing even resembling a decent script, he's just a tired parody of himself, most obvious during a too-long Russian dance scene that I suppose was intended to be both comic and suspenseful and succeeds in being neither.

Note: I've actually owned this movie for over two years (long story), and now that I've finally watched it (only because it has "man" in the title), I no longer have a use for it. Who wants it? Post your favorite movie quote in the comments below to be entered in a drawing to win The Man Who Knew Too Little.