HotToastyRag As the tagline says, watch Without a Clue to "meet the world's greatest detective, and his bumbling partner." It's a film with the famed literary detective duo, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, but in this version, it's Dr. Watson who's the genius. Sherlock Holmes is an idiot! I absolutely love this movie, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Even if you've never seen a Sherlock Holmes movie or read a story, you'll still love it. The jokes are both clever and hilarious, which is a rare and welcomed combination. In the entire 107-minute running time, there might have been a collective ten minutes in which I wasn't laughing myself silly. Several times I had to press pause and guffaw, waiting to resume the film until I'd composed myself. Thank you Gary Murphy and Larry Strawther for writing such a side-splittingly funny movie.A perfectly hysterical script is a good start, but if bad actors with lousy timing deliver the lines, the movie will be terrible. Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley have a wonderful chemistry together, and they both add so much to their roles. While anyone else might play Sherlock Holmes as an ordinary doofus, Michael Caine puts himself in the moment so the blunders are really unintentional. He isn't playing dumb; he means well and happens to be stupid. I'm convinced anyone else cast as Dr. Watson would have played him with more of an angry, jealous, resentful edge. Ben Kingsley is enormously kind, so even when he's frustrated with Michael Caine, the audience can tell he's still a caring person and enjoys his rapport with his lesser half.When they're attacked by Paul Freeman's henchman, Michael Caine gets really upset and worried. Ben Kingsley reassures him that he isn't the real target because Paul is only trying to stop the smarter of the two. "He knows you're an idiot," he says, with only good intentions behind the remark. There's a beat before Michael Caine's response, and the audience thinks he'll certainly take offense, but instead he sighs, "Oh, thank God!" It's one of my favorite jokes in the film, since it shows the adorable combination of sweetness and comedy that runs through the script.If you've had a bad day, Without a Clue will cheer you up. If you've had a good day, Without a Clue will make it better. Do yourself a favor and buy a copy. Renting it once won't be enough.

MartinHafer Considering that the Sherlock Holmes character has appeared in more movies than any other, it's not surprising that they would try making several parodies of the famous detective. "Without a Clue" has a very interesting premise--that it's Watson who is the genius and Holmes is just a boob playing in an elaborate ruse. It seems that the Holmes stories that Watson writes for 'The Strand Magazine' really are about him and his detective prowess. There really is no Holmes--just an actor (Michael Caine) that the Doctor (Ben Kingsley) has hired to play the part. The problem is that the actor is a complete imbecile, a womanizer and a drunk and Watson has had enough of this. So Watson has finally decided to expose the truth....but no one seems to care or believe him. Finally, out of desperation, Watson rehires the actor and they embark on a case that takes them on the trail of the dreaded Moriarty.The acting is pretty good here (I especially liked Kingsley) and the story has many clever touches. Unfortunately, the humor is sometimes a bit too broad and they make Holmes such an obvious idiot that I can't believe anyone would be taken in by him. Perhaps a bit more subtlety would have made a better film. Also, the ending just seemed to go on and on and on. Clearly the film could have used a bnit of editing. Still, it's worth seeing--especially if you are tiring of the same old sort of Sherlock Holmes film.

Michael Neumann That sound you hear is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle spinning in his grave, from mirth more than outrage at the sorry state of his legendary Baker Street detective, depicted here as a bumbling third-rate actor living a role created by the real deductive genius and crime fighter: Dr. John Watson.It's a convenient (if sometimes slightly antagonistic) arrangement, with Watson finding the clues and Holmes getting the credit, and both Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley play the one-joke premise for all its worth, having a lot of fun with their respective characters. Caine is the idiotic, clumsy, lecherous and vain Sherlock Holmes, but Kingsley's Watson is no less temperamental: he has to solve the mysteries and match wits with the fiendish Moriarty while keeping his petulant alter ego under control.The plotting is conventional and Henry Mancini's cartoon music score makes the film sound at times like a mediocre sit-com, but it's a pleasure watching two award-winning talents trample a literary icon with such impeccable comic timing and malicious glee.

ackstasis The Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have been adapted countless times into film and television, but never have they been so skillfully turned on their heads. When I first heard the brilliant concept behind 'Without a Clue (1988) – that Holmes was merely a cover for the real genius, Dr. Watson – I knew that it was a film I'd adore. Just as 'Murder by Death (1976)' brought absurdity to the classic "country-house murder mysteries" of Agatha Christie, this hilarious comedy shatters the immortal notion of Sherlock Holmes as the sharpest and most discerning criminal mind in nineteenth century London. Ben Kingsley, displaying a sense of humour I didn't realise he had, plays the city's greatest detective – Dr. John Watson – who is constantly exasperated by the incompetence of his hired stooge. In an inspired piece of casting, Michael Caine plays the bumbling and frequently-drunken hero, who first attempts to track down the evil Professor Moriarty by jumbling the letters of his name into "Arty Morty." This is the real private life of Sherlock Holmes, and it isn't flattering.The British empire is in chaos. After two £5 banknote printing plates are stolen from the Bank of England, the Treasury fears that they will soon be flooded by a massive influx of counterfeit notes, crippling the economy. Dr. Watson tries to take the case himself, having just dismissed Sherlock Holmes from his service for his latest act of incompetence, but the idea is laughed away by the incredulous Inspector Lestrade (Jeffrey Jones), who knows nothing of Watson's little literary conspiracy. Reluctantly, the drunken Holmes is invited back to 221B Baker Street to carry out their usual act, with Watson whispering his conclusions and Holmes reciting them to his clueless admirers with all the understanding of a trained parrot. The prime suspect in the case is bank employee Peter Giles, whose beautiful daughter (Lysette Anthony) may know more than she's letting on (though Holmes has something else on his mind as far as Lesley Giles is concerned).Though spoof comedies typically take shortcuts when recreating a different time and place, director Thom Eberhardt here constructs a classy and believable 1800s London, a setting that (with one exception, concerning Lesley Giles) remains entirely faithful to the setting of Doyle's stories. All he does from here is to reverse the roles, a hilarious device that opens up dozens of exciting new questions concerning a character who has been endlessly debated by Holmesians for over a century. I enjoyed the more subtle subtext concerning the nature of history, and how Watson's (and, by implication, Doyle's) writing has had the effect of revising history and inventing reality, to such an extent that most characters in the film – and, indeed, many people in real life – never realised that Sherlock Holmes was a fictional creation. Also note how Watson tries unsuccessfully to "kill off" Holmes by proposing a new series about "Watson, the Crime Doctor." Doyle tried to do the same thing is his 1893 story, "The Adventure of the Final Problem."