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Peter Howitt
by Christopher Mulrooney Christopher Mulrooney is a poet, whose poems and translations have appeared in poems and translations in The Pacific Review, Loop, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Combo, Folio, Perihelion, Poetry and Audience, Frank, Poetry Salzburg Review, Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore, Tiger, and Renditions, among others. He is also the author of notebook and sheaves. |
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Johnny English
Johnny English is not on the ball, yet he saves England from a foreign corporate pretender. British critics seem to have found it rather silly, but then, if you're British, recent history will be funnier than any film or will not be funny at all-or else what you're really after is something very silly indeed.
Wrong 'ole, mate. As English wrestles himself to the ground, the crown jewels descend through the floor into a waiting coffin and are driven off in a hearse. His Aston Martin is towed, so he commandeers the lorry in pursuit. Hoist in his own AM, his picture is snapped by a traffic camera as he flies through a red light. Fortunately, he remembers the car fires missiles rearward, so he destroys the evidence.
He loses the coffin and finds it about to be buried. He dances on it in glee, and rails upon the mock mourners, until his assistant (whose name is pronounced "Boff") leads him away jabbering like a lunatic, because he's stumbled on an actual funeral.
Atkinson's Bond impersonation is quite capable. If you had wanted a spy spoof, you would have played off the opening daydream. A personal satire, on the other hand, could do no more than pay homage to Blake Edwards.
Rather, you have a satire of contemporary England, and if you do not find it pointed it's because you have the wrong end of the stick. Pascal Sauvage the French tycoon has the crown jewels, because he intends to claim his obscure title by forcing the Queen to abdicate. Johnny English has found the Sauvage hideout, and climbs up through a drainage pipe to gain admittance. At that moment, all seats are taken in the men's, and he is deluged. "It's only a bit of poo," he explains, as he makes his way to the main hall, where all seats are taken at the banquet table while Sauvage explains his plan, in a scene modeled on Meet John Doe.
John Malkovich in a wig has a girlish smile that's winning in its way, but the money shot is the look on his face as he marches up the aisle to claim his crown.
"Mistake"
is not a word that appears in Johnny English's dictionary, he tells his
boss, whose name is Pegasus (Tim Pigott-Smith). That's a dictionary which
has hardly been perused.
©
FILM JOURNAL 2002