Perhaps unaware that comedy is hard (and sophisticated physical comedy even harder), writer/directors John-Paul Davidson (mainly tv) & Stephen Warbeck (mainly composer) aim for needless whimsy . . . and miss. (Nary a laugh, barely a smile in 95".) Needing a Buster Keaton*, a Peter Sellers, a Rowan Atkinson to pull off this near dialogue-free picaresque, they make do with Ciarán Hinds, a fine character leading-man with the clobberingly big head of a Fernandel and, like that great film comedian, more reactor than generator. So even after starting off with a steal from SOME LIKE IT HOT (innocent witness to a mob rub-out hits the road to save his life), the following series of mini-adventures, half comic/half magical-realism (runaway priest; outdoor production of MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM; being mistaken for a guest-speaker, a la THE 39 STEPS; etc.) lack the connective tissue needed to build audience involvement, especially needed when the gags don't land. (And the makers seem to know it, adding a few repeating bits & recurring characters meant to get us over weak spots.) Prettily photographed (by Kanamé Onoyama) and imaginatively scored by its co-director (note a well-known Song of the Auvergne), it’s a type of near-pantomime comedy more popular in Europe than Stateside. (See grosses on Atkinson’s MR. BEAN for confirmation.) This film unlikely to change that.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Made for the Canadian Tourist Board, Buster Keaton’s late two-reeler, THE RAILRODDER/’65, charting a solo trip across the continent on a mini-train, shows what HAT must have been going for. That twenty-minute charmer usual shows with its even better one-hr ‘Making Of’ companion, BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN. (Watching the documentary first makes the gags in the short really POP.)
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