CLOCKWISE is an all-but-forgotten movie, a low budget and extremely British-feeling farce in which John Cleese, a man who's a stickler for being on time, struggles to get to an appointment. Set over the course of a single day, it has an extremely simplistic narrative, and yet it's still one of my favourite comedies ever.
Whether you like this film or not really depends on your sense of humour, as this is very British-feeling throughout (unlike A FISH CALLED WANDA, which ably mixed American and British tastes). Given that he's virtually in every scene, whether you like this or not depends on whether you're a fan of Cleese. Personally, I think he's a comic genius, and his character here - a riff on Basil from FAWLTY TOWERS - is sheer brilliance.
To say too much more would be to spoil things, suffice to say that the story is so well crafted that there's nary a slow moment and the laughs come thick and fast, mixing good old-fashioned slapstick comedy with character humour and repeated tropes which build up to a mantra come the climax. Great stuff.
Whether you like this film or not really depends on your sense of humour, as this is very British-feeling throughout (unlike A FISH CALLED WANDA, which ably mixed American and British tastes). Given that he's virtually in every scene, whether you like this or not depends on whether you're a fan of Cleese. Personally, I think he's a comic genius, and his character here - a riff on Basil from FAWLTY TOWERS - is sheer brilliance.
To say too much more would be to spoil things, suffice to say that the story is so well crafted that there's nary a slow moment and the laughs come thick and fast, mixing good old-fashioned slapstick comedy with character humour and repeated tropes which build up to a mantra come the climax. Great stuff.