Tony Shalhoub, whose credits are many and range wide, has taken his Adrian Monk (brown) suit out of mothballs after 14 years for “Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie,” premiering Friday on Peacock. For those new to the story, told across eight seasons of the comedy procedural “Monk,” Monk was a San Francisco consulting police detective whose distinguishing characteristic was a full slate of OCD symptoms and every sort of phobia the writers felt it convenient or funny to give him; these were exacerbated by a nervous breakdown after the murder of his wife, Trudy (Melora Hardin), which remained a mystery until the series’ final episode. That alternation between the serious and the absurd was the series’ stock in trade.
As the mournful Monk, Shalhoub may be rated among the great screen comedians, specifically those who use the intimacy of the camera to create characters who remain still at the heart of chaos of which they’re often the cause. Your Stan Laurel, your Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean, your Droopy the cartoon pooch. As a detective, he’s a superhero, with keen powers of observation, but as a person, he’s the hangdog underdog, the little guy, upon whom his foes look with disdain. He’s a man, and he’s a child, for worse but also very much for better.
“Mr. Monk’s Last Case” is basically just a double-length episode of the series, but with the challenge of standing alone after 14 years and providing a workable new(ish) environment for the players. (The cast has aged well.) With a screenplay from series creator Andy Breckman and direction by Randy Zisk, who helmed 35 episodes of the original series, its bona fides can hardly be questioned. Just as pure fan service, it’s a welcome return. If you liked “Monk” you’ll obviously want to watch it — and if you’ve never seen “Monk,” you should watch “Monk.” (The entire series is streaming on Peacock as well. It’s a lot of fun.)
If I rate the movie not quite on the level of an average “Monk” episode, it’s in part because the series was the product of a team working together, before and behind the camera, 16 weeks a year, with every quirk and detail studied and understood, and in part because the energy of a 45-minute basic cable episode is somewhat dissipated in this longer-than-necessary version.