Okay, here's the deal. I'm packing a news flash for you. One of the best-kept secrets in the world is finally loose. Many of us already knew the truth, and tried to tell others. Some of those told believed the truth, others chose to deny it. X-Filers out there, take note! There was a conspiracy in your midst, and only now has it come into the light, for the world to see! Cue the weird music....
America! Wake up! British people are funny! They can do comedy and make it funny! Funnier than we can, sometimes! Don't throw the Monty Python card at me, that crew is no secret. They've been funny for years, and the reruns and movies are still funny. I'm talking about that stuff on PBS after all the tiger-kills-the-antelope movies and the Yanni concerts. PBS, here's a tip. You want to make money during those annoying fund-raising drives? Stop all the yakking, quit with all the tacky coffeemugs and tote bags. Just show more British TV comedy and flash a number on the screen! Dust off the "Fawlty Towers" eps. Toss us some more "Are You Being Served." Start an avalanche of "Absolutely Fabulous." Give us "Keeping Up Appearances" on a daily basis. Trot out the "Black Adder" series. And, more than anything, we want more "Mr. Bean!"
And, PBS, if you dare not take the word of a humble country doctor, go see Rowan Atkinson's new movie, Bean. If you can go five minutes without seeing something funny, I'll fund your next John Tesh extravadingle my own self!
For those of you that have not been witness to Atkinson's character Mr. Bean, allow me to introduce you. Bean is a clown, an almost-mute simpleton of a man. He's a bumbling oaf, a child trapped in a man's body. And, like a child, he is innocent and naive, malicious and mischievous. And he is funny as all get out.
Here, Bean is an employee of London's National Art Gallery. When a California museum obtains the famous "Whistler's Mother," the museum curator (Peter MacNicol) asks the British art gallery to please send over their finest scholar to oversee the unveiling of this masterpiece. The National Gallery's board overwhelmingly votes to send Bean "across the pond," not because of his art knowledge (he's only a guard), but just to get rid of him for a while. His good fortune is their vacation. And, so, Bean lets loose on America.
This film is basically a series of sketches tied together by the framework of the museum job. Atkinson's character is best in the TV format, where two or three sketches can be shown, each with a fade to black, with no storyline to follow. Atkinson's humor is broad and not for all tastes (bodily functions are a blank canvas for Bean), and he seems a little reined in by the story. He's much better when he can be in a hit-and-run situation, slapping you around with a few sight gags, letting you catch your breath, and starting all over again. Here, there's some forced humor to keep everything the plotline flowing, and it detracts a touch. I'm curious as to the decision to run it this way, 'cause I would have thought that a format like Python's And Now For Something Completely Different would have thrived. A series of sketches, jumping from one to the next, with no logical formula, just bang, bang, bang.
For this outing, Bean is basically roaming Los Angeles, wreaking havoc like a runaway wind-up toy. He noses his way into an operating room, wrecks MacNicol's home, and generally lays waste to several of L.A.'s tourist attractions. I won't kid you about complexity. Once you get the general idea about the character, you can spot the gags coming a mile away. But, the kicker to Bean is, more often than not, he'll go one babystep further and go extreme with the gag. You laugh, you anticipate more laughter, and you get it, then, right before the close, you get one more show-stopper laugh to wipe your mouth with.
I do offer a minor question to Atkinson and director Mel Smith -- for the future of the character, why not consider making a silent movie? Not that Bean isn't virtually silent now, but, Atkinson's pantomime skills and his incredibly expressive face offer an opportunity that not even Jim Carrey could pull off. With the right script, the character could carry a 90-minute movie without a word being said. Don't look at me like I'm a court jester on crack! Remember a couple of guys named Chaplin and Keaton?
If you want a taste of what the future of comedy could be, trip on over to see Bean. It's already a boffo success internationally, so any financial success over here is gravy for the biscuit. But, this could be about more than money. I bet people were skittish about throwing this character to the wolves. It could have impacted Atkinson's future in Hollywood, and it could have bounced back on his career in the UK. Instead, I think Bean is here to stay, and the audiences will grow. Take note, PBS stations all over the country. Rowan Atkinson could be the ratings savior you've been searching for. Just stop with the friggin' pledge breaks.
Copyrighted image courtesy of Gramercy Pictures
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