By M. Stephanie Murray
Arizona Daily Wildcat
November 19, 1997

The unbearable wackiness of Bill

Photo courtesy of Regency Entertainment USA Arizona Daily Wildcat Wallace Ritchie (Bill Murray) poses as a Russian dancer to escape a tight situation in "The Man Who Knew Too Little."

While I was waiting through that really pathetic theater slide show before the previews before the new Bill Murray movie, "The Man Who Knew Too Little," I couldn't help but overhear the people sitting behind me.

"This is gonna be a shitty time."

"How do you know?"

"I just know. It's gonna be a shitty time."

"Let's give it 20 minutes, then we'll leave. Go home and kick it."

It was that elephant movie that prompted this flash of psychic ability in my movie comrades - I'm sure of it. I didn't see the elephant movie, but I generally avoid elephant movies as a matter of principle; I've never seen "Dumbo" either.

The point here is that people's expectations of Bill Murray are lowering drastically. His last high point was either "What About Bob?" or "Scrooged," depending on whether you like Wacky Bill or Snarky Bill. Personally, I come down on the snarky side.

And this is a Wacky Bill movie. As generally less-than-bright midwesterner Wallace Ritchie, Murray is a man thrown into an international conspiracy plot. Ignorance truly is bliss, though, since Wallace thinks he's in an interactive theater performance. This allows him to be the most bumbling crime-fighter since Inspector Clouseau, only he knew that the bad guys were real.

This set-up allows Murray to pull out all the stops as Wacky Bill. He thinks he's a suave hitman named Spenser, yet keeps calling for "do-overs" when he thinks he's flubbed a scene. Of course, everyone around him thinks he's dangerously insane.

The attempted point of the movie (which is adapted from Robert Farrar's novel, Watch That Man) is that the Iowa schlub Wallace gets to live out his Walter-Mitty-like fantasies in the real world. The actual point is that this is all leading up to 15 glorious minutes of Murray dancing. I could spend the rest of my life watching Bill dance. He is magic. Put him in a fuzzy Russian hat and he is more than magic - he is transcendent. By the end of the movie, the people in charge must have realized that they were not making art, so they might as well let Bill go nutty.

Peter Gallagher is here too, as Wallace's younger brother James. He's part of a tentative foray into the feel-good world of sibling reunion. But, again, the filmmakers realize that we're all more fascinated by the fact that someone's finally fixed Gallagher's monobrow, and he's actually really cute. Joanne Whalley gets to try out her cockney accent as a call girl with a heart of cubic zirconia; she falls in love with Wallace because ... well, that's never really cleared up. Maybe because he's insane, maybe because she can see the truly good person he really is. Probably because it's in the script.

This is not a bad movie by any means. It is also by no means a great movie. You should see this movie with its point in mind: This is a Wacky Bill movie.

The couple behind me left exactly 20 minutes in, presumably to go "kick it." Bill continued to flail about on screen for another 74 minutes. And I enjoyed it. Screw Jim Carrey; the magic that is Wacky Bill is an American cultural treasure.

And I should know; he's my uncle.