WHAT'S ENTERTAINMENT

It pains us, as devoted champions of laughter and the courageous people who make it, to say that the gifted comedian Steve Martin had the genius to make a movie about the previously hilarious Inspector Closeau that was, at least to us, not funny. 

Upon suffering through the disappointment with a half-dozen other people who sat in the otherwise empty theater in desultory silence, we understood the problem and were gratified that Mr. Martin, incensed as he ever gets, has finally revealed the cause to the wide world.  Apparently, the movie did not have a script.

Of course, one of the reasons for Mr. Martin's revelatory malcontent is that his version of The Pink Panther did not garner the critical raves he expected.

In his announcement, he vowed that his next movie will definitely feature a script.  As he himself said, “This film made me realize there’s only so much an actor can do to make a movie enjoyable.  I don’t care how much talent he has.  I don’t care how much perfectly focused ego and ambition the director has.  The actor definitely needs a script.”

We’re sorry that he had to learn this lesson the hard way, but, apparently, there was no other way for him to succumb to it. Evidently, even he at times finds himself in grip of ego and ambition.

In the apparent total absence of a script, his filmic venture into the Inspector Closeau character appears to be based on, and haltingly attempted to be sustained by, grotesque close-ups of Mr. Martin twisting his pasted-on black moustache in ways intended to evoke memories of Peter Seller’s interpretation of the idiotic inspector, the staging of mostly unsurprising sight gags as they occurred to the ever-resourceful filmmakers, such as a bicycle pileup the Inspector fails to notice, a regular sprinkle of unrelated wisecracks that have the intellectual level of what is frequently referred to as sophomoric, and the frequent exposure of a goodly portion of the delectable and skillfully marketed bust of Beyonce’.

The movie also fails to devote even a split-second to the exigencies of character development, inferring, we suppose, that the audience is supposed to know and love everybody in the film from prevous incarations of Closeau.

What we must call this characterless catastrophe is particularly regrettable since, given a script that Mr. Martin would submit to, he obviously has more than enough talent to make contact with a character, instead of just assuming an attitude intended to evoke Closeau, so that a human feeling or two might occasionally emanate from the screen to charm and touch the expectant but ultimately disappointed audience.

We wish him great success in his resolve to find a leading role in his next movie for a script.

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