6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 3.8 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.6 |
While visiting his brother in England, Wallace Ritchie attends the "Theatre Of Life," which promises to treat the participant as a character in a crime drama. When Wallace is mistaken for a real spy, he becomes entangled in a plot to kill Russian dignitaries and reignite the Cold War. But for Wallace, it's all an act.
Starring: Bill Murray, Joanne Whalley, Peter Gallagher, Alfred Molina, Richard Wilson (II)Comedy | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Family | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
German: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0
Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0
Japanese is hidden
English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, German SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Director Jon Amiel claims that the role of clueless American tourist Wallace Ritchie in The Man Who Knew Too Little was a departure for the great Bill Murray, but any fan of What About Bob? should recognize Wallace's comic progenitor in Murray's earlier portrayal of the hopelessly neurotic Bob Wiley. Both characters are self-absorbed, blunder through the world helplessly and yet always manage to come out on top, while they leave seemingly more capable individuals gasping in their wake. And both exert an unlikely power over the opposite sex. Murray is equally brilliant in both roles, but What About Bob? was a box office success and remains a favorite among fans (despite being criminally mistreated on video by Disney), while The Man Who Knew Too Little (hereafter, "TMWKTL") has always seemed a lesser effort. On this viewing, I think I finally understand why. More on that below. TMWKTL was adapted from an unpublished novel called Watch That Man by former singer/songwriter Robert Farrar. Farrar, who is British, co-wrote the adaptation with American screenwriter Howard Franklin, who had scripted and co-directed one of Murray's best films, Quick Change. Director Amiel, who first made his name with the original TV production of The Singing Detective, directed TMWKTL as a palate cleanser between two Nineties thrillers, Copycat (1995) and Entrapment (1999).
The Man Who Knew Too Little was shot by Robert M. Stevens, a veteran camera operator who graduated to cinematographer on such comedy classics as The Naked Gun movies and John Waters' Serial Mom. Except for the opening sequence, when Wallace Ritchie enters the U.K., and a final sequence that serves as a kind of epilogue, the entire film takes place at night, much of it outdoors, and the production shot in real locations. Much of the film's humor depends on outlandish behavior in situations that are, in and of themselves, relatively ordinary (at least until we get to the Russian dancers at the diplomatic banquet). Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is one of the best catalog efforts I've seen from the studio in a while. The image is impressively clear, sharp and detailed but without the video appearance that results from electronic manipulation. It has a film-like appearance with texture and a finely rendered grain pattern. The blacks in the night scenes are finely delineated in varying shades that provide a sense of depth, and the color palette runs from the institutional drabness of the immigration checkpoint in the opening scene to the brightly saturated hues of the dancers' costumes—and, of course, that ticking Russian doll—in the film's grand finale. Bill Murray's face wasn't yet as craggy as it has become in his later years, but the beginnings are already evident, and the Blu-ray reproduces every incipient wrinkle that the camera picked up. Warner continues to favor low bitrates, but the disc's average of 22.97 Mbps isn't bad for this film, which is more talk than action. The image certainly didn't suffer from any artifacts.
The film's original 5.1 sound mix has been encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, and it has some clever touches. In an effort to make the comedy dark but funny, Amiel kept in one onscreen (sort of) death and a fair number of gunshots, but the gunfire has a cartoonish sound, often traveling from one side to the other with an exaggerated ricochet or echo. There's one well-timed explosion and an elaborate car chase involving a mini-cooper, but both of these have sound effects more suitable to Wile E. Coyote than Jason Bourne. The ambiance of London's outdoors is placed subtly in the surrounds, but generally this is a front-oriented mix. The dialogue is always clear (unless you have trouble with British accents), and the score by Christopher Young (Deliver Us From Evil) is a delight, because much of it is made up of variations on the familiar standard, "Fever", which sounds tough, cool and hard-boiled, i.e., everything that Wallace Ritchie isn't.
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 1998 DVD of TMWKTL, but not all the extras have made the trip. Omitted is the separate 5.1 music-only track, as well as three TV spots and several bonus trailers.
Two of the best things in TMWKTL aren't in the feature itself. The opening animation is an inspired mash-up of spy drama and the Pink Panther, as the lettering enacts a cartoon spy caper over scenes of the Russian doll being loaded with a bomb; Amiel says the sequence cost so much that he didn't want to provide the figure to the studio. The closing credits recycle Nancy Sinatra's song "The Last of the Secret Agents" from the 1966 film of the same name and written by Lee Hazlewood in the same rhythm as Ms. Sinatra's signature hit, "These Boots Are Made for Walking". For some reason, the lyrics seems funnier here: "He's never caught one spy untold; he's never even caught a cold." As for the rest of the film, even lesser Bill Murray is a cut above most other comedy, and Warner has done a nice job with the audio and video. At this price, recommended, but keep your DVD for the missing features.
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