The Other Fellow review – whimsical film about non-famous James Bonds
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These tails and travails of ordinary people who share a name with the famous spy are often fun and funny – but the shifts in tone are uncomfortable
The title of this documentary about real-world men who are named James Bond echoes a famous, winking moment in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service when a young woman runs away after being rescued instead of staying to smooch with her saviour; George Lazenby as Bond, taking over the role from a temporarily retired Sean Connery, wryly says: “This never happened to the other fellow.” The reference is apt because the stories recounted here are all about that glamour gap between the heroic exploits of fictional spy 007 and the regular guys who share his name.
Many of the James Bonds met here clearly loathe it when, for the zillionth time, strangers remark that they don’t look like Connery, Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig. Some parents named them James Bond before Dr No came out in 1962, or if it was out already, they didn’t think the franchise would become that big a deal. In South Bend, Indiana, James Bond Jr first got into trouble as a teenager with the police when he merely told them his name and the cop thought he was taking the piss, because this Bond happened to be black. Years later he was accused of murder, and during the manhunt the name was in the news a lot, causing problems for another James Bond who lived in the same town. We meet an ex-James Bond who changed his last name, and a kooky Swedish superfan who changed his name to James Bond and runs a museum featuring his collection of adorably shonky Bond memorabilia.
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