First Hit: This film will make you laugh at some point or another during it's 101 minutes and it stays entertaining through the outtake during the credits.
Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) is an ostracized MI-6 agent who messed up an assignment in another country. He was excused from the agency because he was lured away from protecting the President of Mozambique by a beautiful woman, which led to the assassination of said leader.
At the beginning of the film we find Johnny in an Asian monastery learning meditation and martial arts from Ting Wang (played by Togo Igawa). There are riffs in these segments on the Kung Fu television series which most people won’t remember, but nonetheless, are funny.
Another agent is in trouble and trusts only English to help him, so Johnny is inducted back into the agency. English works for Pamela (played by Gillian Anderson) who is tough on him. His perceived agent friend Ambrose (played by Dominic West) turns out to not be a friend but the audience knows this early on.
Johnny gets assigned a new agent (Agent Tucker played by Daniel Kaluuya) to assist him in figuring out the next assassination plot. Through trial and error Agent English bluffs, fights, cajoles and uncovers the plot, but not without a lot of goofball mistakes along the way.
I particularly enjoyed the chair scene in the meeting with the Prime Minister. The cat scene was also precious. While English works his particular magic to figure out the plot, the Agency tries to see if he is simply a ditz by using a psychologist agent named Kate (Rosamund Pike) to monitor his actions through facial expressions.
Atkinson is wonderful as a smart, yet sometimes idiotic, agent. Igawa is funny and good as his Asian master. Anderson is adequate at the head of MI-6. Pike is very good as the psychologist that actually sees the brilliance and stupidity of English. Kaluuya is charming as English’s supportive agent in the field. West is perfect as the charming egocentric agent that is looking for more. William Davies and Hamish McColl wrote a funny and nicely sequenced script. Oliver Parker directed English in a way that gave him the freedom to be both brilliant in character and amusing to watch.
Overall: This is an entertaining film and is easy to watch.