It is with a heavy heart that I write about Guest House Paradiso, the semi-official spinoff to British sitcom, Bottom. Both Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, the film and TV show's stars and creators, have denied in the past that this is a spin-off from Bottom, but they cannot fool their audience. The style of humour is the same, the two lead characters are the same and they even dress the same, so, I regret to say, this is a spin-off of Bottom. The reason I say that I "regret to say" is because, whereas Bottom is arguably one of the finest sitcoms to come out of Britain in the 1990s, Guest House Paradiso is a turgid mess, and raises fewer laughs in its 85 minute running time then a single episode of Bottom could in a single sequence. Indeed, the only thing that makes this a "semi-official" spinoff is that the characters' last names are changed. In the show, Rik Mayall plays "Richie Richie", here he is named "Richie Twat" (although he insists it is pronounced "Thwait"), and in the show Adrian Edmondson plays "Edward Elizabeth Hitler", here he is named "Edward Elizabeth Ndingombaba".
In this spinoff, Richie and Eddie run a guest house in a remote part of England, neighboured only by poorly maintained nuclear power plants. A guest house which is regarded as being the worst in the UK, so much so that even the locals deny its existence. The few guests in the house are unhappy with Richie and Eddie constantly getting into bone-crunching, slapstick fights, so they leave in their droves. The depraved duo think their days are numbered until an Italian movie star named Gina Carbonara (Helene Mahieu), who ran away from Italy the day before her wedding, decides to stay at their grotty hotel. Yes, the extent of the humour does come down to an Italian character being named after a pasta dish. Hardy bloody har!
In dissecting what is exactly wrong with Guest House Paradiso, one has to look at the problems in the awful last half, compared to the problems in the merely bad first half. Firstly, what is apparent within the opening moments of the film is that this is Bottom by way of Fawlty Towers, and the structure which made Bottom work is missing. As Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson should know, a comedy duo works because of how well the two actors bounce off each other, and how much chemistry they share. In all seriousness, the supporting cast in any comedy duo is an unnecessary filler to the two leads. Bottom was no different, and the dynamism of Eddie constantly insulting Richie, was what made the show work. Especially since Richie has an overweening superiority complex, to the point where we are hoping Eddie will take him down a peg or two. Then, on the flip side, Eddie's alcoholism meant that Richie often got the chance to get his own back. They hate each other, but they need each other, and that wonderful comic contrast has been keeping comedy double acts going throughout history. Think, for example of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, or even of Albert and Harry Steptoe. So, quite why they thought it would be a good idea to keep Richie and Eddie apart for so long is beyond comprehension. They are frankly boring on their own, and there is just no way that they can carry a film without each other. Instead, Rik Mayall comes across as if he is doing a feeble impression of John Cleese in Fawlty Towers and Adrian Edmondson may as well not be there for all the difference his lack of appearance makes.
However, the reason people watch products associated with Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson is the slapstick fighting which, during their prime, they were unrivalled , with a great kinetic energy. So how does it stack up here? Well, it is fine, when it does appear at all, but Richie and Eddie spend so much of the film apart, we never really get to wallow in their mindless violence, and when we do it is all too brief. These moments are the only moments which raise even a semblance of a smile, but probably more due to do nostalgic feelings for the show than the fights themselves, which are slow and lack kinetic energy; which I put down to the ageing of the two actors. There is also a lack of the gloriously silly and smutty double-entendres, which could not help raising a giggle on the show. Here, despite there being a couple of nice one liners, nothing quite comes to the level of, "Hey, you know why they call Ginger Rogers, Ginger Rogers, don't you?"/"Yeah, because that was her name!"
All this would be fine, yet thoroughly mediocre, if this was how the rest of the film played out, but it is not. When Richie and Eddie split , it simply becomes vulgar, to the point where we find them loathsome. The rest of the film is concerned with Richie attempting to seduce Gina Carbonara, and Eddie doing, well, nothing much. However, it is not until the point where the hotel staff feed their guests radioactive fish where things become truly awful. Most of the climax involves Richie and Eddie attempting to avoid rivers of vomit shooting from the guests' rooms. It is not as if Bottom was not vulgar, but it was also very funny, and the limits of what the BBC would allow them to do meant there was some restraint. Any vomit, for example, was all off screen and the worst swear word that was ever uttered was, "Shit". There is also the problem that the majority of the guests are played straight, which makes Richie's barbs towards them seem viciously cruel. In the show, even background characters were as broad as the two leads, often with names like 'Dave Hedgehog', 'Dick Head' or 'Harry the Bastard'. In that case it meant that Richie's and Eddie's dastardly schemes could be seen as just some typical sitcom humour, as they were tricking characters as dastardly as themselves. In fact, the climax in its entirety is a grave misstep, as Richie and Eddie essentially murder their guests with the poisoned fish, which is far worse than anything they had done in Bottom.
However, most baffling of all is the appearance of Vincent Cassel as Gina's jilted fiance, Gino Bolognese (please, contain your sides from splitting). The French sex symbol himself, star of such art house films as La Haine, Black Swan and Mesrine: Part 1 and 2, plays the most outrageous Italian stereotype, and seems to be embarrassed by every second he is on screen. One just imagines the phone call he shared with director and co-star, Adrian Edmondson, who must have offered him a lot of money to be seen on screen throwing up a 10-foot ball of vomit, only to then be killed off by being pushed out of a window whilst screaming, "I only wanted a shag!"
In conclusion, Edmondson and Mayall confirm that they have lost what talent they had, and have run two characters who were once fresh and amusing into the ground. This is to be avoided at all costs, and if one wants to watch anything which involves both Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, track down the TV series of Bottom on DVD.
3/10
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