Every Rowan Atkinson Film & TV Project Ranked From Worst To Best
15. The Tall Guy
The Tall Guy was a middling late '80s romcom, led by Jeff Goldblum, that was more loved by critics than general audiences.
Despite being somewhat lost to time, the release was an important milestone for writer Richard Curtis, a long time collaborator with Atkinson, and highly influential in terms of style and tropes for his later films, several of which will appear higher in this list.
The plot follows Dexter King (Goldblum), the lesser part of a comedy double-act alongside Atkinson's character, and the travails of his relationship with Kate Lemmon, played by a young Emma Thompson.
Atkinson's role as Ron Anderson strays dangerously close to the "playing himself" territory that would see this picture disqualified from the list. Indeed the whole project is pretty meta, with the best comedy coming from Dexter's role in the fictional musical Elephant!
Based on the life and times of "The Elephant Man" Joseph Merrick, the production is a very-well aimed take down of the popular, although undeniably cheesy work of Andrew Lloyd-Webber which was completely dominant in the world of musical theatre at the time.