Clockwise (1986)

Undescribable Perfection

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

John Cleese plays Brian Stimpson, an efficient headmaster at an English school who, while on his way to a conference where he is to deliver a speech, misses his train, which launches him into an escalating series of misadventures as he desperately tries to reach the conference, no matter what...John Cleese is quite funny as the clock watching schoolmaster, and features a good cast of familiar British actors, but film is not all that funny really, being a one-joke premise stretched out to feature-length. Also, unlike Cleese's more famous character(Basil Fawlty from "Fawlty Towers") Stimpson isn't really that bad, and doesn't deserve these calamities, which seem mean-spirited.

Few comedians are more adept at demonstrating flustered composure than Monty Python alumnus John Cleese, starring here as a meticulously punctual headmaster whose dignity and schedule are thrown out of whack when he misses the train to an important conference. The escalating absurdity of his efforts to arrive on time may lack the momentum and manic edge of classic screwball comedy, but the film ambles politely along, working up a fair amount of laughter as it leads the unfortunate Cleese into one increasingly desperate predicament after another. The result, ignoring the mediocre TV sit-com music score, is an entirely superficial but still enjoyable comedy of errors.

A road movie in which the bloated pomposity of an English headteacher is systematically punctured by a series of unforeseen events. It's essentially a one-trick concept film for the talents of Cleese: it might even be said that it's Fawlty Towers, The Movie, complete as it is with ill-matched wife and with the same car as driven by Basil Fawlty. It's a well-weighted film and it's little surprise to find that the script is by Michael Frayn (whose most famous film adaptation to date is the farce Noises Off with Michael Caine). It's a great film for 'where are they now' (or perhaps 'what they were there, then!?') spotting. Naturally though the film is Cleese's property and although the shtick is familiar he does seem to put it on the big screen unselfconsciousnessly. 5/10

"Clockwise" is a dead boring, mostly silly and rather stupid story about an extremely efficient, amazingly punctual headmaster who finds his whole world coming apart at the seams when his strictly organised schedule goes awry. Director Christopher Morahan is unable to do anything with Michael Frayn's terribly bland plot, which is full of unfunny antics and awfully ridiculous situations. Some mildly effective humour is not enough to save the picture.Even ingenious British comic John Cleese is not able to transform the mirthless goings on, and being typically typecast doesn't help his cause. Luckily for the lanky comedian he was able to bury the memory of this disaster, and thus resurrect his career, with "A Fish Called Wanda".The support cast are totally uninspired, and George Fenton's music is not much better. Put plainly, "Clockwise" is never wacky enough or straight enough. This disappointment tends to sit on the comical fence, which inevitably backfires.Sunday, December 17, 1995 - Video