Reader Recommendation: A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Quite some time ago we had a poll of some classic 80s movies, and one of those movies was A Fish Called Wanda. It didn't win, but someone out there in reader-ville (I'm sorry I didn't write down who, but you know who you are!) had insisted that I still see this one anyways. Other than the movie poster, I had nothing else to go on, so I guessed maybe there was a giant humanoid fish? I had no idea what this was going to be about, in other words. However, only seconds into the movie, with John Cleese appearing, I suddenly had a pretty good idea I was in for a treat. Hit the jump for my further impressions.


Set in Britain, the story follows a band of thieves who rob a bank of its diamonds. They immediately begin to double-cross each other in every way trying to get the loot for themselves. One of them gets picked up by the police and in an effort to find out what he knows the other criminals start messing with his defense lawyer, Archie Leach, to see if he's been told anything. The messing is all done by the only female member of the team, Wanda. Oh, there's also a fish tank with a fish named Wanda in it too.

Hey look, A fish named Wanda.

Obviously the best actor in the entire movie was John Cleese. What I found interesting is that he was probably one of the more serious cast members of the lot. Made for an interesting straight man for the other characters to bounce their weirdness off of. Rounding out the cast we have Jamie Lee Curtis as Wanda, Kevin Kline as probably the wackiest of them all, and finally another Monty Python alum Michael Palin. Probably the most disappointing thing about the whole film is how little John Cleese and Michael Palin interact with one another though. The one scene they finally do is just great and just made me realize how much more I wanted of that. The rest of the cast was good at what they were doing, but more often than not I found Kevin Kline's and Jamie Lee Curtis' characters to be annoying.

John Cleese at his... best? Well you certainly get a lot of him here

Not much else to say about this one. It was amusing for sure, I really liked the ending, particularly the part with Michael Palin's character. In fact his whole side story was just great. It's a little aged which is to be expected, but I really only noticed it in the music choices sometimes. Actually, now that I think about it, it's not like those over the top characters or the events that go on within the movie are things that couldn't be in any modern day comedy. I liked how they played the American stereotypes against the British stereotypes and everyone gets poked fun. I'd say, if you liked Monty Python, you might very well enjoy this. It's just slightly more serious than those, but it's very close. I suspect you'll find a smile on your face a good number of times.