The Timing is Off: Day #278 - Clockwise (1986)
Viewed October 5, 2006
Clockwise is an attempt to take John Cleese’s immensely engaging screen persona and translate it to the big screen in a starring role post-Monty Python. Unforunately, the main character is neither as irritating as his classic Basil Fawlty, nor is he as appealing as the later Archie Leach from A Fish Called Wanda.
Cleese plays Brian Stimpson, a headmaster who is obsessed with fighting tardiness amongst his students and staff. When he misses his train to a very important conference, he finds himself getting into one outrageous adventure after another in an attempt to get back on schedule.
The problem is not with the premise or the characters. It’s a nice idea and has a lot of potential for Cleese. But none of it ever comes together, seeming only half thought out. While there are some chuckles here and there, mostly the jokes are of the quiet “oh, that’s amusing” type. Cleese certainly tries his best to sell the material. He is able to generate a great many of the laughs from his physicality alone. Perhaps no other performer could have gotten as much as Cleese did out of the scraps he is given.
The rest of the cast is not as fortunate. From the young girl that Stimpson gets to drive him to the conference to the myriad of characters that they meet along the way, no one is able to match Cleese at even the modest level he achieves here. It’s kind of nice for once to actually see Stephen Moore (best known as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in several versions of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), but even he can’t breathe life into his simplistic role as a bumbling teacher from Stimpson’s school.
Somewhere Clockwise seemed like a good idea. Cleese playing an eccentric in outlandish situations should have been golden. But this film just doesn’t capture that special kind of magic that Cleese is capable of bringing to the fore. It’s still mildly amusing, but simply can’t reach the level of Cleese’s better works.