WITHOUT A CLUE (1988) ** An admirable concept, Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley in a comedy mocking Sherlock Holmes, but ultimately less successful from a slightly different angle than the Gene Wilder vehicle Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother. Why so much contempt for Holmes anyway? Success, that pipe and hat, that he can appear something of a pompous ass perhaps. Caine's comedic timing is tremendous but he doesn't have much to work with either in terms of lines or support beyond Kingsley. With that British working class drawl he does manage to inject somewhat lame lines with a bit of dancing, but ultimately Kingsley is too much of a serious actor to excel as even the straight man. Jeffrey Jones is always a welcome if somewhat doofy presence, especially as an inferiority complex ridden cop, but he's not given anything like the stuff he got in Ed Wood either. Why do these shows always end up in a showdown in a theater? Some repressed sense of desire for drama? This one burns the end of its rope, not to say climaxes, in two theatres, what do you think of that one Sig?
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