Ignorance = Comedy

The posters are enough to make your heart sink: another "screwball comedy" with Bill Murray carrying the whole cast. Will it be another Kingpin, where Bill's comb-over and fringed vest are the last vestiges of laughability in what has remade the paradigm of a really bad movie?

No. Thankfully, Murray's latest is nothing of the sort, and is instead an altogether humorous and clever film alternately mocking conventions of the Cold War, James. Bond espionage thrillers and the theater itself, along with more pratfalls than even Chevy Chase could dream of.

The premise sounds surely irritating, but the final product betrays the trite-sounding plot line. Wallace Ritchie (Bill Murray) is a high school actor whose ambitions landed him smack dab behind the counter of his local Blockbuster video store. His brother (Peter Gallagher of sex, lies and videotape fame), on the other hand, is a smooth talking well-dressed I-banker in London. Wallace decides to drop in on his brother for his birthday (thankfully Gallagher saves us a reprise of his recent flop To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday). The brother, James, freaks, being on the cusp of a multimillion dollar deal with the Germans" (soon virtually every nationality's stereotype will be played out). He decides to send Wallace out on an evening of participatory theater, "The Theater of Life."

Here the film mocks what was apparently a British craze in the 80's (who knew?) of assuming a character and joining a group of actors playing real people in dramatic situations. But something goes wrong at the corner phone box where Wallace is to receive his instructions, and that's where the wacky comedic antics really begin.

As expected, the phone rings, and Wallace takes down the instructions for his persona of the evening. Unbeknownst to him, though, he has received the call intended for a government hit man, expected to help with a plan to destabilize the Anglo-Russian detente whose peace treaty is to be signed that evening. What ensues is Hitchcock's "wrong man" scenario, but with humor instead of horror, and Bill Murray instead of Cary Grant.

The evening begins with Murray being mugged by two street punks, whom Murray misidentifies as part of this grand theatrical scheme. He forces them to redo the scene in several genres, with one emotional performance nearly reducing them to tears. Then he gives the befuddled youths his wallet, letting them run off, shouting "I want that back at the end of the show." But, even this gag would get old by the end of the film, so the movie is not solely powered by this idea that life only affords one take.

The strange thing about this film, visually, seems to come from its directing/producing line-up. Jon Amiel, whose previous work includes the nauseatingly sadistic Copycat and the astoundingly boring Sommersby remake, has teamed up with producers from Heat and Free Willy 2. The only question is how this movie was made at all, considering the divergent interests of those involved. But the effect is wholly pleasing, combining fast comedy with art-house cinematography. The scenes feel at times like someone spent too much time at film school, but it makes them interesting to watch, even if you think you know what's coming next.

The world into which Wallace Stevens delves for a night is much stranger than anything Bond ever had to face: Russians (that's right, Russians), call girls, defense ministers, senior citizens with a penchant for S & M and Octopussy (well, not really).

The greatest thing is that Wallace just continues to play along, not once flinching in the face of the torturous butchers, real bullets coming from his toy gun and plastique-engorged matrioshki. What would have broken up the frenetic timing of the film would have been a classic Bill Murray shriek, but instead we only see the unrelenting self-assurance which seemed to have disappeared after Ghostbusters. It's heartening that the same old funny is still there, while other "Saturday Night Live" grads in Murray's matriculating class continue to turn out mediocre family films for Disney.

Instead of breaking character, Murray shows an innocent admiration for the acting ability of those in his own personal theater of life, remarking upon how his leading lady (Joanne Whalley, of Willow fame) is a natural actress who never forgets her lines, and upon the amazing concentration it must take to play dead, as one corpse does in an early scene.

Those on the other end of the moral spectrum, the bad guy politicos, are also continually astounded by the efficacy of Murray's secret agent man act. The stock Brit and the stock Russian, working together to revive the Cold War, marvel at his cool aplomb and heartless ability to ignore the impending torture and death that could ensue if things go wrong. The clever folks in the audience can laugh and laugh, knowing it's really ignorance that gives such calm, whereas for Wallace it's the assumption that because he paid for the ticket, his safety in this theater of life is assured.

In one scene, the Russians are preparing to torture him into a full confession. One yells in his ear "You are going to talk, or you are going to suffer." Wallace stops the "scene" saying "Hey, hey, hey. It's not nice to yell into people's ears."

The name of the game is irony and near-misses, as Murray steps into a traditional Russian dance at a diplomatic function, tossing about explosive nesting dolls, and flailing about to the music in true Murray style, much to the delight of the audience in the film, and in the theater.