Several people are invited to a desolate mansion during a stormy night. The butler, Wadsworth, reveals that each of them is blackmailed by the mansion's owner, Mr. Boddy: Mrs. Peacock for bribes; Mrs. White for suspicious deaths of her husbands; Professor Plum for having an affair with a patient; Colonel Mustard for being a war profiteer; Mrs Scarlet for secretly running a brothel; Mr. Green for being secretly gay. When the lights are turned off, Mr. Boddy is found dead, and each of the guests is suspected of being the killer. When the cook is stabbed to death, the guests, together with the maid Yvette, search the mansion. A cop enters to make a phone call, but is killed as well. Three endings are presented as to who did it, and in the first it was Mrs Scarlet, who wants to continue blackmailing all other guests, but is arrested by Wadsworth, who turns out to be a secret police officer, while a police unit storms the place.
A semi-successful movie adaptation of the eponymous board game, "Clue" is a murder mystery comedy that has some better and some lesser moments, yet is overshadowed by the overall better and more "smooth" forerunner, N. Simon's "Murder by Death", filmed 9 years prior. The story starts off wonderfully mysterious, with six people arriving at a spooky mansion in the middle of a stormy night, and even includes this funny exchange between Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd) and a woman: "Why has the car suddenly stopped?" - "It is scared". The set up where the villain, Mr. Boddy, is found murdered after the lights go off for a moment in the room, gives some neat sparks and tickles the imagination as to who of the people did it, whereas Tim Curry is consistently in best comedy shape as the cynical-polite butler Wadsworth. In another good joke, after Mr. Boddy disappeared and everyone suspected his murder was just a trick, a woman opens a door, and the missing corpse of Mr. Boddy falls on her, followed by a delicious little remark: "He is dead? Again?" Colleen Camp also steals the show here and there as the attractive, erotic maid with a huge buxom. Unfortunately, a large part of the middle of the story is forced, overstretched, filled with several lame, spasmodic gags that wreck the impression, or a hectic pace where even silly moments are accepted without much further thought. The characters of Mrs Peacock, Colonel Mustard and Mrs White are terribly underused. Of the three endings, the first one works somehow the best, and gives a rather satisfaying conclusion. The best joke: when the lights are turned off, Wadsworth tries to find a door knob to exit the room in the dark, but just pulls a shower knob, which pours him with water.
Grade:++
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