Without a Clue [DVD]

Movie / Show Details

Amazon.com

Without a Clue is an underrated comedy featuring stellar teamwork by two great actors, Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley. This Sherlock Holmes pastiche with a twist stars Kingsley as physician, writer, and self-effacing super-sleuth Dr. John Watson, who channels his genius for deduction into lucrative stories about Holmes. Watson wants the world to believe the fictional private eye actually exists, posing a problem when a steady stream of troubled souls come seeking Holmes’s help. The doctor’s prescription: hire a two-bit, drunken, skirt-chasing actor (Caine) to portray the Great Detective, an arrangement that causes Watson consternation whenever “Holmes” tries to improvise his way through a case. Wonderful comic timing and tension make Without a Clue a delight; Caine, particularly, gets a lot of mileage out of the faux Holmes’s grand efforts to appear a genius. Henry Mancini’s score adds a touch of old Hollywood gloss, and Thom Eberhardt (Night of the Comet) directs. –Tom Keogh

Product Description

Suppose for a moment that Dr. Watson was the real brains behind Sherlock Holmes? The result is anything but elementary! Academy AwardÂ(r) winners* Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley deliver stellar performances as a delightful duo, an 1890s Odd Couple (Los Angeles Times) in this madcapmystery that’s ‘the most hilarious Sherlock Holmes adventure of them all (‘sneak Previews )! Dr. John Watson (Kingsley) is secretly a crime-solving genius. But to protect his reputation as a physician, he hires bumbling, boozy, out-of-work actor Reginald Kincaid (Caine) to play the part of his fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes. The charade works until Watson mysteriously disappears, forcing the baffled, seriously inept Holmes to crack the biggest case of Watson’s career on his own! *Caine: Supporting Actor, The Cider House Rules (1999); Supporting Actor, Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); Kingsley: Actor, Gandhi (1982)