The Tall Guy

I started reading IMDb almost 30 years ago. IMDb.com went live two months after Uncle Scoopy's Fun House, so I feel like we grew up together. In the first two or three years of IMDb.com, Groundhog Day had an outrageously low rating, somewhere in the 5s. I expressed my shock over this in an IMDb comment in October of 1998. (I don't remember when their comment system went live, but I remember that I was one of the first to comment on the movie.) It seemed at the time that the supporters of the film consisted solely of me, a couple of other commenters, and BAFTA, which gave it a deserved nomination as the best original screenplay of that year. The IMDb readers eventually came to their senses, and the film is now on the site's "Top 250" list, making it one of the highest-rated comedies in history.

Which brings me to The Tall Guy, another film that prompted me to express shock and outrage over the low rating. This one has only recovered to 6.2, but it would be up there with Groundhog Day if I were doing the ratings. This movie is one funny mofo, written by the same guy who wrote Blackadder, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones's Diary.

This is the rare movie which is both very intelligent and very funny, like the best work of Woody Allen or Steve Martin, but it is edgier, more stinging, and just generally bitchier than either Steve or Woody. Jeff Goldblum is the tall Woody Allen of the film, playing an American actor stuck in a dead-end stage job in London, as the anonymous sidekick who gets bopped over the head by an acclaimed baggy-pants slapstick comedian, played to perfection by that ubiquitous presence in all British comedies, Rowan Atkinson. Although Rowan is all smarmy, rubber-faced charm on stage, and is a Fawltyesque suck-up to the Royal Family, he is in fact a petty person who despises anyone who gets a bigger laugh than he.

After six years of playing Rowan's stooge in baggy pants revues, Goldblum gets sacked, leaving him with very few opportunities. He goes to his agent, and the conversation goes something like this:

That conversation led him to the lead role in a musical comedy based upon The Elephant Man, called (appropriately enough) "Elephant!" This show-within-the-film is hilarious. The author is obviously not a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber, because he has managed to take all of Webber's musical and stylistic excesses and combine them into a tasteless new pastiche. The songs really sound like they are right out of a Webber musical, but the words are blackly comedic. When the Elephant Man dies, heaven welcomes an "angel with big ears".

Here is how the New York Times described it:

Andrew Lloyd Webber himself has never matched it, and only Mel Brooks's classic ''Springtime for Hitler'' in ''The Producers'' is more inspired. A musical version of ''The Elephant Man'' comes complete with a chorus line of men in suits wearing elephant masks, tap-dancing and kicking up their heavy gray hoofs with the precision of the Rockettes, finally raising their trunks in unison.

At its heart, when it's not goofing on theater cliches, this movie is a simple romantic comedy about a relationship between the tall guy and an ostensibly prim nurse (Emma Thompson, brilliant as always) who is hiding a volcanic sexual appetite beneath her starched whites. The film handles that with aplomb as well. The sex scene between Goldblum and Thompson is excellent, and laugh-out-loud funny - a parody of all of those movie scenes where the couple is swept away by passion. At one point they have all four feet on a piano keyboard, and are playing chords as they frolic. After they finish, their room looks a hotel room in war-torn Gaza after a weekend stay by Kid Rock.

DVD info from Amazon.

widescreen anamorphic 1.85:1

no extras

The film is filled with obscure and fun references, like an episode of the Simpsons or a Dennis Miller rant. In fact, the London song which opens "Elephant" is very similar to the Simpsons' famous New Orleans song in their musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire. (This movie came first, if you are wondering)

Some of my favorite lines in the movie were complete throwaways. Goldblum at one point is watching an award show, rooting for anyone to beat Atkinson. One of the other nominees for "best comedic actor" was Christopher Reeve in "Whoops, Hamlet." Another was Dudley Moore in that comedic masterpiece, Death of a Salesman.

I laughed out loud through most of the film. Your mileage may vary because the film is full of "inside baseball" references to films and plays, and you may not love that as much as I do, but whether you do or not, dammit, this movie just too good to be so obscure.

The Critics Vote

Ebert 3.5/4. I agree with him. A near-masterpiece.

Rotten Tomatoes summary. 86%

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 6.2/10

IMDb guideline: 8.0 or more is one of the best films of all time. Approximately 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

If a film is your kind of movie, then an A and a C+ will seem the same to you.

Based on this description, this film is a B, a brilliant, overlooked comic gem.