Every now and then a film comes along which is regarded as a critical and commercial failure, a misfire, that I love - where I totally get where the filmmaker is coming from, think they executed it well, genuinely like the movie, and am bewildered by the hate. One example is Shadows and Fog from Woody Allen; another one is this comedy from HandMade films and the team of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.
It's a look at latter day British colonialism - a tinpot island in the Caribbean that lacks beaches and/or industry whose inhabitants are mostly descended from shipwreck victims. Michael Caine is the dope-smoking, floral shirt-wearing governor who wants the best for his people - yes, absolutely, this is a "white saviour" movie, but Caine's charm makes the role very winning.
The plot concerns the discovery of deposits of mineral water on the island and subsequent fighting over it - there's the British government (led by Leonard Rossiter), French special forces (defending the interests of Perrier), American oil company who want to extract it (Dennis Dugan, Fred Gwynne), visiting movie star making an ad (Dick Shawn), the governor's wife (Brenda Vaccaro), environmentalist (Valerie Perrine), local revolutionaries (led by Billy Connolly), Cubans. There's cameos at the end from some Beatles and Eric Clapton.
All these subplots are juggled expertly and to me at least the satire seemed equal - it makes fun of islanders, British, French, Americans all the same... everyone's an idiot. Occasionally the humour is too broad and unfunny - the whole Brenda Vaccaro subplot probably could have been dispensed with - and it does feel very white orientated (the only genuine local we get to know well is Billy Connolly, who is half white... it's a shame say the Valerine Perrine role couldn't have been a black local... she could have moved away) but it is bright, clever, well structured, with a stand out cast.
Yet the film was a big flop. No one seems to think much of it critically. I honestly don't know why other than the taste of the filmmakers (and myself) was clearly out of step with everyone else.
No comments:
Post a Comment