Wilt is a 1989 film adaptation of the comedic novel Wilt by Tom Sharpe. The story is basically the same, but with a bit more action and a few marks of the 1980s here and there.
Henry Wilt is an underappreciated and unhappy assistant tutor of Liberal Studies in the Mid Anglia College of Further Education. His job is thankless, his students are rowdy punks, his idle wife keeps finding new crazy hobbies, like her latest friend, who fills her head with slogans of liberal promiscuity. When alone, Henry's up in the clouds, dreaming about killing his wife.
One evening, while walking his dog and deep in murderous thoughts, Henry tries to save a man from an armed robber. Only to find that the "robber" is a very unhappy policeman, inspector Flint, who was trying to arrest a drug dealer.
Then one Monday a woman's body is found at the construction site of the new college building — and accidentally buried under tons of concrete. Right the day before the visit of prospective Japanese sponsors. Since Eva Wilt is nowhere to be found, the investigator — inspector Flint — suspects Henry and starts trying to make him confess, slowly prying the weekend's events out of him.
Tropes specific to the film include:
- '80s Hair: Not very big, but often quite curly. Most noticeable for Eva Wilt and some of the students. Henry too.
- Adaptational Badass: Henry Wilt is as indecisive as in the books and even clumsier. Yet, he decides to intervene in what he mistakes for an armed robbery, and even manages to knock out Inspector Flint. Thus ruining the arrest and the whole sting operation.
- Adaptational Wimp: Eva Wilt isn't exactly a wimp, bit she is much smaller than in the books. Both in size, and less hammy.
- Adaptation Deviation:
- The new scene where Henry unknowingly ruins a police sting operation as well as Flint's promotion.
- Henry's visit to the meat processing plant is very brief and not as amicable.
- The film skips the party at Westropers and switches right to Monday, showing earlier events as incomplete flashbacks.
- Flint destroys the park of Westropers' estate with bulldozers and diggers while looking for their and Eva's bodies.
- Flint's superiors decide to intervene during the mass seizure of meat products. They cancel this order and remove Flint.
- Henry signs his confession as "Sweeney Todd". Which is the reason for Flint's removal.
- Sally and Hugh do have servants to clean their mansion, thus Sally only lusted after Eva, rather than wanting to get a free housemaid.
- Sally doesn't try to kill Hugh.
- There's a serial murderer at large — "The Swatham Strangler". It's Rev. Froude, who tries to strangle Eva for her sins, while Flint is being obstructive to Henry.
- Henry does not blackmail his boss into promoting him. Instead, a sponsor demands to do so.
- Adaptation Name Change: Pringsheims became Westropers. And British instead of Americans.
- Adaptation Personality Change:
- Eva's obsession with cleaning the house and overuse of disinfectant are not mentioned, she's keen on personal hygiene instead. The hilarious story of her being Giftedly Bad at her last job (and the reason she's a housewife) is also missing.
- Sally is unsympathetic and manipulative, but her being psychotic never comes up, and she doesn't try to murder anybody.
- Instead, the film has a serial murderer — "The Swatham Strangler", and he's even one of the book characters. That's Rev. Froude, who in the book was only an alcoholic placed in the most remote parish.
- Inspector Flint makes some mistakes he avoided in the books and in general behaves like an Overzealous Underling.
- Artistic License – Law: For a witness to recognize a murder suspect, it is not enough for her to bump into him in a corridor and scream "That's him!"
- A Degree in Useless: One of Henry's former students took a degree in sociology - and became a security guard.
- Gone Horribly Right: When sleep-deprived Henry invents the gory details of the murder to make the police
Squick, he is the first to throw up. Though, Dave soon follows, and Flint isn't feeling well either. - Japan Takes Over the World:
- The book had an inspection re-evaluating the college status. The film replaced it with prospective Japanese sponsors.
Braintree: Not gonna look too good for the new sponsors tomorrow, is it?
Treadaway: Oh my goodness. Do you think it's too late to stop the Japanese?
Braintree: It's always too late to stop the Japanese.- Henry's crowning Moment of Awesome, where he finally shows a spine to his superiors, is replaced with Deus ex Machina. Mr. Hitachi appreciated his firmness in the face of hardships and demanded the college to promote him.
- Lighter and Softer: The film is this compared to the original satire novel. Eva is smaller and less aggressive, Sally's lesbian nature is downplayed, and Flint is incompetent compared to the novel where he gets his career ruined by outside interference from his superiors.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Flint and Wilt.Inspector Flint: I'm depressed. I'm frustrated. My marriage is going nowhere, and nor is my career.
Dave: True, but you mustn't let it get you down, sir.
Inspector Flint: I'm not talking about me. I'm putting myself in the mind of Henry Wilt. - Not What It Looks Like: Everywhere.
- The book expressly tells what happened between Wilts and Pringsheims on Friday night, and how and why Henry decided to deal with the doll. The film skips the party at Westropers and switches right to Monday, showing earlier events as incomplete and possibly biased testimonies/flashbacks. This gives viewers an impression that Henry may not be completely honest.
- Henry Wilt embarrassing himself with a rubber doll got plenty of witnesses.
- The stocking left on the scene (which was used to tie his arms) looked exactly like the weapons of a wanted Serial Killer — "The Swatham Strangler".
- Later, when he was beating the doll on an empty street and woke up an old woman, he could not think of an explanation better than "performing an emergency appendectomy" on his girlfriend. Of course, the old woman later testified seeing him stab a woman to death.
- His broken car was found next to a construction site. A security guard saw him right next to the pit, where the body was found later.
- Henry was thinking aloud about murdering Eva, and it got recorded by a radio microphone Flint lost. And then Flint stumbled upon the cassette at the most inconvenient moment possible.
- On an unrelated note, Flint went to a sex shop for some reference information about sex doll and was shocked by what he saw:Inspector Flint: Good god! Do people really buy tartan dildos?
Salesman: That's my thermos, Mr. Flint.
- Overzealous Underling: Inspector Flint may be in charge of the investigation, but only because inspector Farm is on vacation. He is very eager to prove himself worthy of this position. More often than not, he's out of his depth.
- Precision F-Strike: Mr Hitachi upon witnessing Flint excavate the blow-up doll, asks "What the fuck is happening out there?"
- Police Are Useless: Compared to some other Sharpe's works, the book did not focus much on that — the policemen acted according to the evidence available and did not even violate any laws, technically. The film has such a fine specimen of ambitious incompetence as Flint, and the rest aren't that stellar, either.
- Flint is introduced preparing for a sting operation. And immediately loses a vitally important radio microphone, which dooms the whole plan. When the criminal escapes, there's no evidence left.
- Granted, Flint has the right to hate Wilt. But that's no excuse to consider him guilty even before evidence started to appear.
- Flint stubbornly believes Wilt is guilty and interprets everything in ways that reaffirm this theory. He swallows every lie Wilt invents as long as it fits his preconception.
- When the old woman reported seeing a murder the night before, nothing was done to connect this event with a body at the construction site. If she did not run into Wilt at the station, that crime would've remained unsolved. Of course, this all was a huge misunderstanding, but had the crime been real...
- By the climax Flint goes off the deep end and sees evidence of Henry's crimes in everything. Even watching the Serial Killer attacking Eva, Flint only cares about arresting Henry.
- Conversely, Flint's superior, Farm, sorts everything out in seconds. Granted, he has no grudges against Henry.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Eva Wilt earned a black bandana and now teaches martial arts. Henry is one of her students. And so is security guard Flint, whose new employer wants him to take a refresher course.
