Brian Stimpson is the headmaster of a high school obsessed with punctuality and discpline. He plans to travel to Norwich to chair the Headmasters' Conference, but due to a misunderstanding, he misses his train because it was at the wrong gate. Stimpson rushes back home, but his wife Gwenda already left, and cannot drive him. He stumbles upon Laura, his student, and persuades her to drive him in her car to Norwich. Along the way, the get into a lot of trouble, including hitting a police car, meeting Stimpson's former colleague Pat who also drives the car across the meadow, and landing in a monastery. Finally, Stimpson arrives at 5:00 pm and holds a speech at the conference, but is arrested by the police afterwards.
"Clockwise" is one of those movies that start with a great premise and then ruin it. The first 10 minutes are actually fun, showing the principal of a high school, Stimpson (very good John Cleese), obsessed with everyone being on time and respecting the clock, almost as some sort of commentary on excessive British discipline that needs to loosen up. He observes all the students from his window office, and then adresses some directly via his microphone connected to a loadspeaker: a student is lost in the high school exteriors, so Stimpson instructs him: "G-3, LeRoy!" When a professor sees him in the office, Stimpson scolds him: "The first step to knowing who we are, is knowing WHERE we are and WHEN we are!" After this intro, the main plot tangle then sets it, in which Stimpson plans to go to Norwich for a conference, but misses his train. This would have been a great opportunity to spoof his obsession with punctuality, get him out of balance and force him to become more human, as we see how he reacts to being late himself.
Unfortunately, the whole rest of the movie is not about his punctuality—but about his bad luck. And it simply isn't funny. The main road movie segment where his student, Laura, drives him to Norwich seems improvised, empty and lacking punchlines. Take, for instance, the moment where Stimpson meets a former friend, Pat, and persuades her to drive the car a bit. They miss their turn, so they turn on a next road, but then have to stop because it is blocked by cows. They continue driving on the meadow. But by the time the car gets stuck in the mud, the viewers realize the whole movie is stuck, since it simply doesn't know what to do with this concept. It is forced, contrived and banal. A missed opportunity. As one unwritten rule in comedy goes, even if a protagonist is stuck in a bad situation, he still needs to show some ingenuity and control over events at time, which is here absent. One amusing quote became famous, though. It's the scene where Laura and Stimpson lost their car and are stuck on the highway, she tries to be optimistic, but he goes: "It's not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand!"
Grade:+
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