Clean Slate

Pogue (Dana Carvey) wakes up one morning in Venice, California and doesn't remember a darn thing about his life. Suffering from daily short term memory loss, way before Drew Barrymore did, Pogue listens to a tape he made the day before. It states he is a private detective and that he has been called upon to testify against a gangster (Michael Gambon) who blew up an automobile containing Pogue's lovely girlfriend, Sara (Valeria Golino). Yet, Sara appears on his doorstep and asks for his help. How can this be? She directs him to follow her to a fashion show, where she will tell him more. In the meantime, Pogue is "arrested" by police officers, who take him to a surprise birthday party, where he is the guest of honor. It seems Pogue used to be a policeman and had contact with a D.A. (James Earl Jones), an assistant D.A. (Kevin Pollack) and others. But, Pogue fails to recognize anything that will jog his memory, not even with a doctor's help (Michael Murphy). Will Pogue and his darling canine, Baby, be able to dodge the bullets of those out to prevent him from testifying, without knowing exactly what is going down? This is a nice little film with a very fine cast. Jones is always welcome and Pollack is acidly funny most of the time, too. Golino is very lovely and Gambon is quite amusing as the designated gangster. As for Carvey, he has such great comic skills that it is a shame that he never gets to attain his usual "go for broke" humor, but he is still funny and a very attractive performer in his own right. Kudos to the little dog in the movie, too, as he is highly entertaining. As for the costumes, sets, and production values, they are quite adequate, and the script and direction show decided originality and zest. In short, if you love Carvey, you will like this film, even though his humor has been toned down. But, truly, anyone who loves off-the-beaten-path comedy films will embrace this one with zeal.

Okay, But Not Memorable (Pun Intended) I didn't find this as humorous as I had hoped to find after Carvey's hit "Wayne World" farces. The high, in a dark humor-ish vein, was the dog in the film. The mutt who had a depth perception problem and kept running into things, was easily the best character in the movie.

The premise was fine: a private detective (Dana Carvey playing "Maurice Pogue") with short term memory loss, meaning the following day he keeps forgetting what happened the previous 24 hours. Add a femme fatale and some wild gangsters, and this film should have been hilarious....but it wasn't. The running gags with Pogue faking things all the time because of the memory problems is what became annoying.

Part of the problem might have been casting. Carvey looks like anything but a hard-boiled detective. Also, although I did laugh at some things, we have a modern-day comedy more needless sexual innuendos, sado-masochism offered and the like. Why? If you have a good comedian and a good story, you don't need that garbage. I think most Carvey fans were disappointed with this film.

Dana Carvey is an excellent comedian, and this movie makes good use of his many talents. "Clean Slate" is a situation comedy with a decent setup, but what makes the movie is Dana's interpretation of the confused guy who has to untangle a mess he doesn't know anything about. His facial expressions are hilarious, and his delivery perfect. This is one of my favorite movies. The movie it best compares to is "So I married an axe murderer" in the sense that it follows a funny guy and a fox as they try to untangle themselves from a series of embarrassing situations, all the while trying to solve the underlying mystery.

Since it didn't affect the overall storyline, I'm rating it decently, though not as high as a 7 because of it. If the dog's blind in one eye, he would have a depth perception problem, not a problem of seeing an object off to the side of where it actually is. Other than that, I really like this one.

This is a hight quality movie, in that it's not like Austin Powers where it's just kind of silly, weird humor (and don't get me wrong on that, I LOVED Austin Powers). If you're looking for a movie with a good story line (and by the way there are some serious parts along the way that spices it up) and good quality humor, believe me, this is the one. It's hilarious and you will be laughing from your belly. It made ME crack up. There's only a select few movies that Dana's been in, but this one was one of his best. He really showed off his how funny he really is in this one, and, like I said, what's even more worthwhile about this movie is that it actually has a plot and it's a good one.