Biff Basham (Help! My Gumshoe’s an Idiot!)

Created by Michael Webb

Clueless young New Orleans private eye BIFF BASHAM stumbles into a dumpster fire of a case in Help! My Gumshoe’s an Idiot!, a low-budget 2018 comedy that attempts to do to the Shamus Game what Airplane! did to air travel.

Nope.

Not even close, although it does have its moments. With so many absurd sight gags, wisecracks, snappy patter, and some truly painful puns being tossed at the screen, some are bound to stick. The film also plays well on the Big Easy’s reputation for weirdness, like the ME who gleefully reports, when asked about test results, “I got a B in EnglishQ!” Or when the villain escapes on a unicycle. Or when “the case takes a nasty turn” — trust me on that one.

And yes, Biff is, as the title tells us right away, truly is an idiot. But at least he’s an affable one, thanks to Arnie Pantoja’s deft portrayal of the befuddled doofus dick — Panjota’s performance stands out from most of the rest of the “where do I stand?” cast. He plays the role with a likable blend of total bewilderment and misplaced cockiness.

Biff lives in a fantasy world where he truly believes he’s a hard-boiled  investigator who stepped right out of a 1940s Raymond Chandler novel — and he has the trench coat and fedora to prove it.

Unfortunately for Biff, it’s not the 1940s anymore, and he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, more akin to Naked Gun‘s Frank Debin than Philip Marlowe. He’s barely making ends meet, and has been reduced to selling off most of his possessions. His best (possibly only) friend is his goldfish. Which he eventually has to pawn.

So Biff’s easily suckered in when fine-looking nightclub chanteuse Krista Moretti (Rachele Brook Smith) hires him to look into the murder of her husband, Mauler Moretti, a champion boxer. Oh, and while he’s at it, could Biff also please look into the person threatening to unleash some steamy photographs of her?

From there it’s just a hop, skip and a pratfall or two into a morass of blackmail, treachery, mobsters, foreign agents, a few awkward anachronisms, and of course murder. Plus some more sight gags and horrible puns.