Without a Clue is a comedy staring Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley. The premise is simple; Holmes (Caine) is a complete idiot and John Watson (Kingsley) is the real detective. It seems that Watson was trying for a prestigious position and felt his hobby of detective work might be taken as a negative. To work around this he hired an actor to pretend to be the one solving the cases. To say that Holmes is not up to the task is an understatement.
The case is something that might be typical of a Holmes story. Moriarty is the villain and has created an elaborate plan to throw Watson off the track, get rich and bring England to its knees. The way Moriarty is brought to justice, however is anything but a typical Holmes story.
This is a fun comedy that got pretty good reviews at the time and continues to on imdv and rotten tomatoes. However, the fact that there aren’t all that many reviews doesn’t appear to have ever been available on any streaming service indicates it has pretty well been forgotten. Is it a great comedy? Nope. Does it deserve a better fate? I think so.
‘Without a Clue’ was nominated for Best Fantasy Film at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in 1990. I didn’t know that was a thing, but there you go.
It is available to buy or rent from Apple TV or on DVD/Blue-Ray.