A Fish Called Wanda

I recall watching this as a young teenager. Some parts were shockingly funny. Some parts were shockingly boring. But as a kid (more the fool, me) I assumed that the boring plot-driven parts made sense to the adults in the audience and I simply wasn't sophisticated enough to grasp them. Generally speaking about me viewing grown-up movies as a kid years later, that tended to have been the case. In reality, the bank heist here IS overly complicated. I mean none of the complications would have occurred at all if Wanda and Otto hadn't randomly decided to doublecross George for absolutely no reason whatsoever. And once the complications began rising, Wanda, at least, had an option that she should have taken: Called the operation a loss and move onto a different score. If they hadn't made robbing the bank seem so effortless, I might think differently. But she spends a lot of effort and drama trying to get the money for what a sane person would have given up as a bad job a half hour into the picture. These are mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

As a kid I could not appreciate the subtleties of the message of Otto who HATES being called stupid. He's not just a vulgarian (although him being a jerk is his most easily noticeable quality). A lot of internet memes have quoted Jamie Lee Curtis calling him an ape, and him retorting that apes don't read philosophy. And she says yes they do, they just don't understand it. That is like the most amazing insight ever, and it entirely brushed by me as a dumb kid. I can safely say I didn't grasp the heist not because it was too sophisticated, but because it was ungraspable. However the idea that this vulgar, loud American considered himself worldly and wise, while repeatedly saying and doing stupid things to bollocks everything up, was a new kind of critique of the Ugly American I had never heard of before: The Know-Nothing Know-It-All. King Of The Hill plays Peggy Hill the same way, but not only are the laughs there painful instead of funny, but Peggy is still considered a main protagonist of the show, and the producers are dumb enough to think I should still like that damaging idiot at the end of the day. At least this movie allows us to hate Otto and enjoy every bad thing he brings upon himself.

80's movie. Questionable tropes time. Duh. Ken being a director of SeaWorld in the end titles is not a victory for a supposed animal lover. And I don't like realizing John Cleese wrote the entire damn script while's he's writing himself kiss Curtis' breast. Just ick.

The ending is strong, and probably why the movie made a favorable impression back in the day. Otto's fate is a bit too cartoonish, but really him sticking the chips up Ken's nose while he eats his fish is the set-piece of the film. And you can laugh at his line "It's K-k-k-ken c-c-c-coming to k-k-k-kill me!" But maybe that's the reason he shouldn't have done all that.

It's became a major taboo in Hollywood to kill a dog on-screen. You want to know why the second Jurassic Park movie essentially failed? That's why. That's why it lost the audience. Granted, it was also terrible, but technically so was the first one. It was the dinosaur eating the dog that did it. Here, the filmmakers bravely see the comedy in these cute little pooches getting killed in all these horrible and horribly funny ways. It's probably the first and only film in history that's made killing dogs actually funny. This is simply not done. The fact that the movie gets away with it three times is amazing enough. That fact that you laugh (at least for the second two dogs) is a freaking comedy miracle.

Do I think this is a comedy high point for the 1980's? Possibly. Which is damning to the entire 1980's. Do I think it's overrated, boring in places, and offensive in others? Yeah. That too. Am I still gonna recommend it because of that fast-paced ending at the airport? Yup. 4 stars.