The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997)

Wallace Ritchie flies to England to spend his birthday with his brother, James. James has business guests coming over and must find something to occupy his brother until dinner's over. Wallace ends up taking part in the "Theatre Of Life," which promises to treat the participant as a character in a crime drama. Trouble begins when Wallace is mistaken for a real spy and shoots a man. Now he's tangled up in a plot to kill Russian dignitaries on the eve of the signing of an important peace agreement. For him, it's all an act. But to the men who want a second Cold War, Wallace is public enemy number one......Less of a film, and more The Bill Murray Show......Live From London!!!, the film follows Murray as he is mistaken for a top agent, and him thinking it's all an act. Again its a high concept that's been done many times before, the mistaken identity farce, but here it's more of a who's who of British Thespians, rather than an all out silly farce.Firstly, the films way too dark for family viewing, talks of terrorism and our hero in peril makes for a pretty dark watch, if it were treated as a dark comedy, this could have worked, but it's too goofy in places for its own good.Secondly, there isn't enough character development. It's clear that the brothers are slightly estranged, but his never expands, and the fact that James' wife doesn't know he has a brother, or why he cannot be at the dinner, are balling, and in turn, annoying.So we are left with Murray looking bemused for the rest of the film, and seasoned actors like Molina, and Wilson subliminally rubbing their hands at the thought of their pay packet.If your a Murray fan, the sharp toothed, critical Murray you loved in Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, and Scrooged, is sorely missed.As is this movies opportunity.

Wallace Ritchie (Bill Murray) flies from Des Moines, Iowa to London on his birthday to surprise his brother James (Peter Gallagher). James can't have Wallace in an important business dinner. James set him up with an improv group which places the participant in a realistic crime drama. However it goes all wrong when Wallace answer the payphone used by the improv group but it turns out to be a man hiring hit-man Spencer to kill call girl Lori (Joanne Whalley). The real Spencer answers the call from the improv group and kills one of the actors. Wallace goes along with the intrigue thinking all the while that it's make-believe.This is fun for about 30 minutes. Bill Murray is irreverent and stupid. However the one-joke movie gets a bit boring. It becomes rather repetitive and rambling.

The Man Who Knew Too Little is an alright movie with a surprisingly clever story line and a great performance from Bill Murray,but a lot of the humor is very hit and miss,and probably misses more commonly than it hits,although I will admit when it does hit it is very funny.I was very confused watching this movie who the target audience was,because a lot of the humor was very childish,but what happens in the movie and a lot of scenes aren't very suitable for children,its probably meant for the family,but I would advise any overprotective parent to view this movie before viewing it with their children.Wallace Ritchie (Bill Murray) gets involved with spy's who are assassinating a private event,but Wallace thinks it is all a theater act and must stay in character.

Peter Gallagher is an ambitious businessman in London, trying to put together a big international deal to market his product. He invites his goofy brother, Murray, over as a guest and tells him he'll be taking part in "The Theater of Life," which will consist of a series of auditions and improvised incidents that may lead to a part in a play. Something like that. It's like Michael Douglas' "The Game" turned inside out.This is a fantasy, built around a single joke -- Murray's belief that it's all part of a game. He continues to believe it throughout the movie, even to the end. The first inopportune occurrences are minor ones. Two British thugs attempt to rob him at knife point. Murray responds by chuckling and complimenting them on their ability to really get into the role.Then he's swept up coincidentally into a plot by British and Russian agents who long for the good old days of the Cold War, when all the spies were busy and the phones rang all the time. They plan to assassinate the Russian and British leaders who are about to sign a Friendship Pact. Murray is misidentified as a secret agent assigned to stop them. The contretemps pile up, one upon the other, and Murray blindly stumbles through it all. If a pistol appears, he's likely to say something like, "Uh-oh, a sign of realism, eh? Very impressive. No, really." The caricature of reality resembles that of Peter Sellers' "Being There," the story of an almost infinitely stupid ex-gardener who only knows what he's seen on television but is taken to be a Deep Thinker and winds up being considered for nomination for the President of the United States."Being There" had its silly moments but was funnier because the lines were better and because it carried a certain sting with it. How stupid can you be before you are recognized as less than presidential material? Here, the jokes involve much more slapstick and the misguided premise itself is sort of worn out by the end. Murray winds up at a big party, dressed as a Russian dancer, jiggling a live bomb. The writers kept forging ahead although the story was going nowhere. Not that it doesn't have its share of laughs.I'm not sure the writers realized it but they've introduced a kind of psychological approach to therapy based on the "life as theater" model. There's no place to get into role playing. Anyone interested should Google Milton Erikson. I'll give an example of how taken-for-granted the scrips that we live are. It's a real example. A Los Angeles police officer pulled over a driver for a minor violation. The driver was African-American and it was a black neighborhood. As the cop examined the driver's credentials and busied himself with writing a ticket, a crowd gathered, slowly growing angrier at yet more police harassment of blacks. Soon the lone cop was surrounded by a muttering mob and the threat of violence hung in the air. The script at this point called for the cop to unclip his revolver and order the crowd to disperse. Instead, he turned and waved a copy of the traffic ticket above his head, shouting, "You have just witnessed an exercise of law enforcement in the city of Los Angeles!" While the crowd puzzled over this announcement ("What did he say?"), the officer got into his car and drove quietly away.Neither Murray nor anyone else knew quite was they were tapping into when they casually threw around terms like "Living Theater" and "Life as Theater." It really IS, in many ways. For more of THAT, read Kenneth Burke or Erving Goffman.