Customer Reviews

Clockwise [VHS]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is Cleese doing what Cleese does best. Right, I mean insanity by inches.

He starts as a utterly rigid headmaster, the kind so precise that he stops in mid-sentence to make sure that the clock ticks when it should. Right. He sets out, at the precise moment, to accept a major award for himself and his school. Right?

Right.

Then just a little thing happens. A very little thing. He asks the way to the train - which is it? Left?

Right.

And right he goes. From that point forward, it's a comedy of errors. At each new error, Cleese's character adds a notch to the pressure. Step by step, the frenzy increases, new characters add their bits to the pressure ("sherry glasses", for example), until you expect everyone to burst a vein. Somewhere along the line, Cleese ends up in just his boxers, as required. The ending is very British, with all of the various police jurisdictions politely working out which characters go to which gaols.

I swear, I've had days like that.

There are a few nits to pick here. That high-school girl had more of a twenty-something look about her, for example. But c'mon, the story works, the characters work, the mishaps work, and it all comes together in the perfect "thank gawd it's not me" experience.

If you set your expectations low enough, this is sure to exceed them. It's a specimen of the 'goofy britcom' species, and a stunning one at that. Enjoy it for what it is.

//wiredweird

This was clearly designed as a vehicle for John Cleese, cashing in on his international fame as Basil Fawlty. Here, as headmaster Brian Stimpson, he gets to engage in all the familiar Fawltyesque madness with great relish. However, it manages not to descend into meaninglessness and pedantry like so many comedy star vehicles tend to, since it boasts an excellent script by veteran playwright Christopher Frayn. It is all delicately paced, and nicely played out with typical British charm by a host of comedy regulars including Alison Steadman and Geoffrey Palmer.

The movie basically follows a day in the life of the time-obsessed Stimpson as he makes his way to a conference in Norwich, where he is to make a speech as the first ever grammar-school head to be made president of the headmasters association. Beginning with missing his train, we follow Stimpson in his ill-fated attempts to get to Norwich on time. Plenty of opportunity for mayhem and chaos along the way, as well as some laughs stemming from Cleese's irredeemably pedantic character. Nothing deep, but lots of fun.

John Cleese is the very precise, orderly and punctual headmaster of a common British public school. As such, he rules the school, students and faculty as strictly as possible. Due to his managerial excellence, he wins an award for best Headmaster of the year (a great honor coming from a public school,) and this is where the fun begins! In order to receive the award, he has to attend the award ceremony off in the middle of the English countryside, and getting there is all the fun! (Anything that can go wrong...)

This is, hands down, one of the best movies ever made, and I've been waiting years for it to come out on DVD! It's physically impossible not to incredibly enjoy Clockwise, especially if you're a Fawlty Towers fan. I remembered nearly every single scene in this film from when I saw it as a teenager over 15 years ago! It's that funny. You simply MUST see this movie! (And DVD is the best way to do it.) Enjoy!

John Cleesec comes close to re-creating his famous role as Basil fawlty in Fawlty Towers, and is hilarious in doing so. He plays a headmaster who is always firmly punctual but when he is due at a conference in Norwich and he boards the wrong train he is plunged to a cross-country adventure with a school girl and a former girlfriend hot on their pursuit. A simple plot unravels a series of sketches that are fine blends of comedy, complimented by fine performances from the cast. John Cleese is manic from the word go but he never fails to amuse. The razor sharp scripts are witty and perfectly timed. Other familiar faces in the cast include alison Steadman, Penelope Wilton and Joan Hickson. A fine British comedy classic.

It doesn't have much in the way of penetrating insights into religion, but this frantic Frayn/Cleese race across East Anglia is as good a transposition of farce to the silver screen as we've ever seen. The pace is kept just taut enough throughout (something A Fish Called Wanda never managed) and the roll-call of British character actors is dished out liberally without ever turning into an "ooh look, it's him off of Kinvig!" distraction, most notably Geoffrey Palmer, Penelope Wilton and Stephen Moore.

This is a must if you like John Cleese. Whilst the script is by theatre writer Michael Frayn, the script is so full of Cleeseisms it could have been written for him (or perhaps Cleese made some revisions). This is a contemporary of Monty Python's Meaning Of Life, and the headmaster in this film would seem to be the Comprehensive School cousin of Cleese's Headmaster in The Meaning Of Life. The supporting cast is a delight, with Joan Hickson giving a wonderfully entertaining portrayal of a dotty old lady worried about who would inherit her late mother's sherry glasses. Much of the cast had featured with Cleese in Fawlty Towers, Geoffrey Palmer, Pat Keen, Ann Way, and if you look closely you can see future Eastenders Leslie Schofield and John Bardon in small roles, and Operation Good Guys' Mark Burdis as a schoolboy. The film is at the same time a joy and a pain to watch. Just as you think poor old Mr Stimpson (Cleese's character) is getting somewhere, he is frustrated by something outside his control. Anyone who gets stressed watching Fawlty Towers ought to avoid this.

It's pretty ironic that this film came out the same year as the similarly plotted "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". The concept of persons trying to get from Point A to Point B only to find themselves at Points C through Q first has been fodder for movie comedies for years. (Think of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" or any of the Hope/Crosby "Road to..." movies.)

Only one thing makes this film different from the others. (You guessed it!) John Cleese. Rather than exploding at every mishap along the way, Cleese's performance is an exercise in proper British restraint in the face of adversity. The master of the slow boil, Edgar Kennedy, would have appreciated Cleese's performance here. You just wait. You feel Cleese's blood pressure rise. You see the veins swelling and coiling. It's truly something amazing to watch. The supporting cast is very effective, and, as another reviewer pointed out, is a veritable roll call of British character actors. And what characters!

But even the best of these films suffer from the fact that they are one-joke movies. They tend to drag on just a little bit, and "Clockwise" is no different. Still, it's worth viewing.

Finally, the brief interview with John Cleese is a nice little addition to this DVD.

Another forgotten but fun movie about a rigid schoolmaster (Cleese) heading to become chairman of the headmasters society .

The time obsessed Cleese is stymied by first a little mixup followed by a series of minor disasters each growing steeper in scope. Little by little we see him cracking until the final goal of reaching is destination on time dwarfs every other logical consideration.

Viewers of British comedy will recognize many of the faces from many other shows (particularly FAULTY TOWERS). They are lots of fun (particularly the old ladies) It is an interesting sidebar but not as interesting as the many sub plots and sub characters all on a similar quest, who in a very English way fail to act with their goal before them in order to avoid embarassment.

If this review seem vague, it's because it IS vague, but that is on purpose. This is a movie that needs to be SEEN without letting any little plot device out. This is a weakness of the film as it doesn't stand up to repeated viewing as well as it should, likely due to the dryness of the material but Cleese carries it off, I don't think any other actor could.

I've watched a few of the movies that Cleese has been in (Monty Python series; A Fish Called Wanda, Fierce Creatures etc...) and have found them all to be quite funny, so I had high hopes when I got this movie.

Basically, Cleese is an uptight headmaster of a British School whose punctiliousness has led to his being chosen as the chairman of the National Headmasters Association (or some such name). Unfortunately on the day when he is to give his speech, a series of incidents occur that could lead to his being late for the meeting. That is where the fun begins, and you go on a roller-coaster ride, as one incident after another occurs that adds to the chaos.

Cleese as usual is hilarious, but I couldn't help feeling that the plot was a little bit too simplistic; linear almost, and were it not for his acting, the movie would have flopped. Overall, it wasn't a bad movie, it had its funny parts, but I don't think it was anything near his best. If you want to watch Cleese at his best, I would suggest _A fish called Wanda_ where he teams up with Michael Pallin and Kevin Kline.

Ok, I love John Cleese. This movie is a great sleeper starring the master. There is less physical comedy and more subtle comedy in this film, and I like that. It will never be listed among his master works I'm sure, but a great and cute little film. If you like Cleese, this belongs in your collection.