THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE (12). Time 1 hour 33 minutes. Starring Bill Murray, Joanne Whalley, Richard Wilson and Peter Gallagher.

SILLY season at the cinema had to start somewhere and this comedy caper could be the beginning of a long, hot summer of low budget boredom.

Watchable only for the genius of Bill Murray - who played one of the best characters ever as the greenkeeper in the hilarious Caddyshack - this is vacuous farce at its worst.

Mixing second string US actors with British small screen stars, the movie centres around loopy American tourist Wallace Ritchie (Murray) who has come to Blighty to pursue birthday presents.

Lonely at home in his role as porno movie distributor, Wallace tracks down his big-shot brother James (Peter Gallagher), who is a high-flying company exec in London.

Unfortunately for Wallace - yet another kooky Murray-in the wrong place at the wrong time character - he has gatecrashed an important top-level meeting between his brother and the usual austere German directors.

James seizes the opportunity to dream up a great birthday present for Wallace which will also get his brother from under his feet. He buys Wallace a part in real-life theatre - that is, where normal people get to play heroes while the plot and actors are tailored to how much fictional danger the client requires.

But Wallace unknowingly stumbles into a real-life drama and becomes unwittingly embroiled in a government attempt to bring back the Cold War.

Hilarity rules as Wallace meets others involved in the crisis, including a - guess what - bungling hit-man, Russian and British double-crossing diplomats and the defence minister's call-girl (Joanne Whalley).

Wallace fires off live bullets willy-nilly, leads police on a wild-goose chase and escapes death on numerous occasions.

The plot is as clever as it is intricate and Murray does what he can to liven up the scriptwriters' dire attempts at comedy, but this is the same unoriginal Ealing-based stuff. It really isn't worth wasting an hour and a half of your life.

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