A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

With The Ice Storm and Grand Canyon, I found myself rediscovering a deep appreciation for Kevin Kline, and so it was only natural that I get around to watching a film which I should’ve seen long ago, the supposedly iconic comedy for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award.

While I did laugh uproariously at times during A Fish Called Wanda, I really didn’t see anything especially distinctive about the film as a whole outside of Kline’s character, Otto, and his perpetual need to call British people out en masse for being stuffy, prim, and reserved. You know – all those clichés of Brits. Despite there being some truth to the clichés, there are plenty of British people, like Ray Winstone’s character from Nil By Mouth, who would’ve ripped a hole open in Otto’s throat for his obnoxious confrontations. But this is a screwball comedy written by John Cleese, and it is written that Otto bullies and harasses various uptight Brits for comedy’s sake and comedy is not forsaken in the creation of Kline’s colorful sociopath. Otto is hysterically funny, and can be whipped into knee-jerk rage by being called “stupid” as suddenly as Marty McFly can by being called “chicken.” Otto reads Frederic Nietzsche and fancies himself an intellectual. But just in case his wits cannot be summoned, he has a gun with his trusty silencer attached.

We have no doubt from his complete lack of impulse control that he is dangerous, but he is also a windbag, which makes for many volatile exchanges between him and whoever is unlucky enough to cross his path (1. because he is dangerous and 2. because he is oppressively obnoxious). He also has a streak of sadism, as exhibited when he forces Michael Palin’s character, Ken, to watch as he eats the bound Ken’s precious and beloved fish one by one out of Ken’s fish tank.

I’ve spent a whole paragraph describing the Kline character and nothing else, because really, that’s all that’s worth discussing. The rest of the film is formulaic diamond-heist triple/double cross, sexy lady (Jamie Lee Curtis) seduces stuffy British guy (John Cleese) for ulterior motives screwball comedy caper. The Kline character adds a much needed dose of sardonic humor which in turn overflows into the other characters a bit, such as when Ken, a sweet-natured animal lover (who stutters! Comedy!) is taunted by Otto that he will be unable to kill a witness, an old woman, who is testifying against the apprehended member of the quadruple diamond burglar team (the other three are Palin, Curtis, and Kline).

Ken, knowing Otto is right, but hating Otto for bullying him, is adamant in his refusal to lose the bet – he will kill this old lady. The old lady is portrayed as a broad comic caricature (she has three small dogs). The three small dogs are portrayed comically too. When Ken the animal lover goes to pet one, the sweet little thing almost takes his finger off. The old lady is presented as unsympathetically as her dogs. First Ken enlists a rabid Doberman (who bloodied Ken while he was muzzling the beast) to attack the old woman. He struggles with the dog in the back of a truck, comically urging it to “Kill! Kill!” and then opens the truck’s back doors and releases the Doberman, who proceeds to dart right past the old woman and snatches up one of her small dogs in its teeth. This is followed by a funeral service for the small dog. Then Ken attempts to run her over with a car, but can’t do it, and swerves before hitting her, while still managing to squash one of the two remaining small dogs. There is another funeral service. Finally he takes a sniper rifle to an upper floor of the building across the street from where the old woman lives. When she steps outside with her one remaining dog, he cannot bring himself to shoot her. But beside the entrance to her building is a construction scaffolding from which hangs a heavy block of cement. He fires a bullet into the rope connecting the block to the scaffolding but instead of landing on the old woman, it lands on her final pooch. Upon noticing resistance on the leash and finding it leading to underneath a heavy cement block, the old woman suffers a heart attack and drops dead.

Reviews of A Fish Called Wanda from back in 1988 will lead one to believe that it was some sort of revolution in comedy (Roger Ebert compares one scene to the Marx Brothers). What I think is that critics were so distracted by Kline’s buoyant antics that they failed to see the unremarkable film surrounding him; the other characters are merely sounding boards. In 2008, A Fish Called Wanda still holds up as an entertaining diversion, but remove Kevin Kline, and it’s all rather more insipid than the jubilation would indicate.

Grade: C+