MOVIE REVIEW : Goldblum Rises Above ‘The Tall Guy’

Jeff Goldblum has been in better movies than “The Tall Guy” but he’s never been funnier.

As Dexter King, an expatriate American actor in London, Goldblum has the agility and the bug-eyed apprehension of a great clown. With the exception of Steve Martin, Goldblum is probably the best physical comic actor in the movies. It’s not just that his movements are a surprise to us. They look like they’re a surprise to him, too. Goldblum is constantly perking himself into new realms of neuromuscular amazements. It’s like watching a one-man slapstick ballet.

Dexter has been loitering for years as the straight man to a hyper-obnoxious comic, Ron Anderson (Rowan Atkinson), whose West End revue is a grab bag of low-grade music hall vaudeville. Seized on stage by an uncontrollable case of hay fever, Dexter falls in love with the tart nurse (Emma Thompson) who gives him his allergy shots. Revivified, he ditches the revue and finds new employment--as the lead in a serious musical version of “The Elephant Man” entitled “Elephant!”

What keeps “The Tall Guy” (selected theaters) consistently amiable is the affection the filmmakers have for the rowdy, posturing life of the theater. Director Mel Smith and screenwriter Richard Curtis have written and performed together on the stage and on television (most notably on the BBC’s “Not the Nine O’Clock News”), and they work up a series of satirical jibes at everything from Benny Hill-style low comedy to Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.

The “Elephant!” stuff, for example, isn’t just a one-joke idea. Smith and Curtis actually stage a half dozen numbers, including the finale, where a chorus chants “Somewhere up in heaven is an angel with big ears.” As satire of the musical theater, the “Elephant!” sequences rival Mel Brooks’ “Springtime for Hitler” numbers in “The Producers.”

If the rest of the film (rated R for nudity and mild sexual situations) had been up to this level of invention, it might have been a classic. But there are a lot of wayward, misfired jokes, good ideas that aren’t timed well, bad ideas that aren’t timed well. Smith loses his comic touch whenever he ventures outside the music hall--his take-off on Richard Lester’s movie shenanigans is particularly woozy.

Still, Goldblum (literally) towers above it all. With his long limbs, he is as lithe as a katydid and matched well with Emma Thompson, whose no-nonsense crispness almost succeeds in making British hauteur seem sexy. It’s probably no accident that Goldblum’s most popular part was the title role in “The Fly.” He has a buggy, off-kilter quality that makes him perfect for roles of surpassing oddness. That’s why he is a great Elephant Man, too.

Maybe someone should consider making the musical for real. Just make sure it stars Goldblum and that it’s a comedy.