My Review of "The Man Who Knew Too Little"

The Man Who Knew Too Little came out back in 1997. I didn't get into this movie until years later. It was a long time ago but I did remember fond memories of this movie. In fact I kind of miss the idiot savant comedies that we used to have back in the day. This movie hit me in all the right ways.

The movie starts off with the introduction of our main character Wallace. It happens to be his birthday and he's travelled all the way to the UK to meet his younger brother. Immediately you can already tell this guy doesn't have much. He's a homely person that cherishes friends and family. There's never a moment where he's not looking for a new friend either.

Unfortunately the timing of his visit isn't the best. His younger brother James is in the middle of a preparing for a very important business dinner meeting. The pressure is on for James but he doesn't want to ruin his brother's birthday either.

What they opt to do is have Wallace participate in an interactive live theatre show. There Wallace would be occupied for a number of hours in some live action fun. I don't know why we don't actually have more of these in everyday life nowadays.

Of course this is a movie so something has to go horrifically wrong. Wallace unwittingly gets involved in an international incident thinking it's part of the interactive show. Meanwhile the real spy who Wallace is assuming the identity to goes on to interact with the live show. Things are about to go bonkers.

Through a series of crazy luck and stupidity Wallace continually outwits the villains in the movie. It's a 90s twist to the Pink Panther. I loved that series as well. It also doesn't have a lot of the political incorrectness of the Pink Panther. Surprisingly this movie is very socially acceptable even to this day.

There's a sense of wholesomeness throughout the movie that kept me smiling throughout the runtime. I had so much fun with this and they have a few clever situations that play out really well. That's not to say this movie isn't heavily predictable though. It is very predictable and you can see where everything is going to go. In some ways this is more comforting than anything. It's sort of like mindless junk food and I love it.

Each member of the cast does a great job in exaggerating their characters to a cartoon level. The laughs are all there even after multiple viewings. I have seen this movie a few times and I still get a chuckle even though I know exactly what's going to happen. Although, if you haven't seen this movie ever, you're going to have a great time from start to finish.

It's weird but there's practically no special effects at all in this movie. I'm almost used to seeing special effects in all movies. The movie came out in the late 90s with a pretty low budget so you can kind of tell that they didn't really film this in the UK either. It's fine because that's not exactly what you're going to be thinking about throughout the movie.

Overall, I still had a great time watching this after multiple viewings. For me this movie is a classic. I think the whole family is able to enjoy this one as it's quite wholesome and easy to understand. It's a movie that I won't stop watching if it was on TV. That's why I have to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. They really have to do a remake of this movie maybe. Then again they don't really need to.