Master Comedian Is Heart of ‘The Monster’

For the great privilege of seeing a genius at work, you may have to venture into his uncertain native habitat. So it is with Roberto Benigni and “The Monster.”

Though Jim Carrey gets the big bucks, a convincing case could be made for this master Italian comedian as the funniest man in film today. No one, except perhaps Robin Williams before he turned warm and cuddly, is capable of making you laugh so hard by doing simple things so spectacularly well.

Like many successful actors, Benigni has been seduced into working in American films, appearing to good effect in Jim Jarmusch’s “Down by Law” and “Night on Earth” and less successfully as Jacques Clouseau Jr. in “Son of the Pink Panther.”

But to experience Benigni at his most persuasive, you have to see him in one of his frenetic, hyperventilating, borderline ridiculous Italian farces, of which “The Monster,” the highest-grossing film in that country’s history, is the latest and most successful.

A considerable improvement over Benigni’s previous film, “Johnny Stecchino,” “The Monster” is no glib, verbally sophisticated comedy. Extremely silly and slower-paced than American audiences are used to, it still finds the energy to shamelessly ogle women’s anatomies.

The heart of “The Monster” is the stuff of classic silent comedies: chases, pratfalls and physical gestures. Benigni directs himself as well as working as a screenwriter, and if this film consciously echoes both Chaplin and Keaton, he is one performer who can accomplish that without embarrassing himself.

For Benigni is so gifted he makes every scenario he touches inevitably funny. Whether it’s trying to learn Chinese or coping with a lit cigarette that has dropped down the front of his pants, Benigni creates hysteria whenever he appears.

Always wearing the same nondescript gray suits, with a crown of frizzy hair surrounding an invariably quizzical face, Benigni’s characters are cheerful poor souls, baffled and confused by everyday life without losing their air of sweetness and innocence.

“The Monster’s” story line does not start out light and fluffy. A sex criminal is terrorizing a city, having attacked and murdered 18 victims with enough ferocity to horrify even the local chief of police (Laurent Spielvogel).

Benigni plays Loris, a mild-mannered moocher and shoplifter who rarely works and makes it a habit never to pay for anything. But when he mistakes a dignified woman for a nymphomaniac and adds on an unfortunate experience with an out-of-control chainsaw, Loris suddenly becomes the chief’s No. 1 suspect for the string of crimes.

Determined to catch this “Mozart of vice” red-handed, and egged on by a fanatical if misguided criminal psychiatrist (French actor Michel Blanc), the police place one of their own, detective Jessica Rosetti (Nicoletta Braschi, Benigni’s wife and frequent co-star), in Loris’ apartment. Her dubious assignment: “You have to urge him on 24 hours a day.”

Much of the comedy in “The Monster” comes from not-so-simple misunderstandings, as Loris makes a habit of doing things (like tearing a child’s doll apart) that the audience understands one way but appear quite differently to the block-headed local police.

Benigni also has a perfect knowledge of how to use repetition in physical comedy, knowing that the careful repeating of the same actions can get progressively funnier. Even something simple, like Loris doing a duck walk to sneak past his building’s superintendent, gets elaborated into a hysterical scenario. Like much of Benigni’s inspired comedy, his bits of business may not sound like much on the page, but he is artist enough to make them priceless on the screen.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: risque situations and continual ogling of women.

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‘The Monster’

Roberto Benigni: Loris

Nicoletta Braschi: Detective Jessica Rosetti

Michel Blanc: Taccone, the psychiatrist

Jean-Claude Brialy: Loris’ landlord

Dominique Lavanant: Taccone’s wife

Franco Mescolini: Chinese teacher

Ivano Marescotti: Pascucci

Laurent Spielvogel: Chief of police

Massimo Girotti: Loris’ neighbor

Released by Cinepix Film Properties. Director Roberto Benigni. Producers Roberto Benigni, Yves Attal. Executive producer Elda Ferri. Story and Italian screenplay Vincenzo Cerami and Roberto Benigni. French screenplay Michel Blanc. Cinematographer Carlo Di Palmi. Editor Nino Baragli. Costumes Danilo Donati. Music Evan Lurie. Art director Giantilo Burchiellaro. Sound Jean-Paul Mugel. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

* At selected theaters.