A Fish Called Wanda

Released 1988
Stars John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin
Directed by Charles Crichton and John Cleese

Tagline: A tale of murder, lust, greed, revenge, and seafood.

"A Fish Called Wanda" is the funniest movie I have seen in a long time. One of its strengths is its meanspiritedness. Hollywood may be able to make comedies about mean people (usually portrayed as the heroes), but only in England are the sins of vanity, greed and lust treated with the comic richness they deserve. "A Fish Called Wanda" is sort of a mid-Atlantic production, with flawless teamwork between its two American stars (Curtis and Kline) and its British Monty Python veterans (Cleese and Palin). But it is not a compromise; this is essentially a late-1950s-style British comedy in which the Americans turn up to do and say all of the things that would be appalling to the British characters.

The movie involves an odd, ill-matched team of jewel thieves led by Tom Georgeson, a weaselly thief who is locked up in prison along with the secret of the jewels. On the outside, Palin, Kline and Curtis plot with and against each other, and a great deal depends on Curtis' attempts to seduce several key defense secrets out of Cleese. The film has one hilarious sequence after another.

Summary by Roger Ebert