From projo.com
 |  |
Movies
8.17.2001 00:05
Ridiculous Rat Race crashes
BY MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer
In the frantic Rat Race, highroller Las Vegas gamblers give a half-dozen randomly selected and unwitting people keys to a New Mexico train station locker containing $2 million, placing bets on who'll get there first in a mad, mad race.
It sounds a bit like one of those reality Survivor shows, which is how Rat Race is being pushed in the TV commercials, but it's actually a reworking of the 1963 film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. That epic comedy, which briefly gained cult status about a decade ago, featured well-known comedy stars of the era -- Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers, even Ethel Merman -- in a race across the desert to find buried treasure.
Frankly, I pretty much felt the same about Rat Race as I had about It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World -- after a short time it begins to look like the writers were desperate to try anything to get a laugh. Lesbian bikers. Adolf Hitler's touring car. A cow hanging from a hot-air balloon. A bus full of women on their way to an I Love Lucy convention, all dressed as Lucy Ricardo.
The Lucy bit promised to be hilarious, but it's a one-joke gag, which, like too much of Rat Race, becomes merely ridiculous and goes on and on and on for a very tiny payoff.
This is too bad because the film was directed by Jerry Zucker, who co-wrote and co-directed such zany 1980s satires as Airplane! before getting more serious with the romantic drama Ghost. Working from a script by Andy Breckman, a writer for David Letterman and Saturday Night Live, Zucker tries to keep Rat Race on a zippy pace. But when some of the gags fall short, the movie grinds to a halt.
"It's a horse race with animals that can think and cheat and lie and play dirty," says the underused John Cleese as the Vegas casino tycoon who sets the plot in motion.
"Play dirty" is the operative term as this collection of losers does anything to reach the goal. Unfortunately, there's no one in the film to identify with and root for. Jon Lovitz's hapless family man drugs his family so he can reach the cash. A sequence in which Amy Smart, as a helicopter pilot, discovers her lover in a swimming pool with his ex-girlfriend and not only buzzes them, but divebombs his truck, wears out its welcome and seems ugly rather than funny.
A pair of lunkheaded scam artist brothers, played by Seth Green and Vince Vieluf (with a pierced tongue that causes him to mangle words), get caught up in a series of dimwitted adventures involving a radar tower, a hot-air balloon, the cow and a monster truck. All are elaborately staged, but overstay their welcome, too.
That's often the problem. A sequence involving Rowan Atkinson as an Italian vacationer whose bouts of narcolepsy make him fall asleep at the most inopportune times, Wayne Knight as a medical emergency van driver and a human heart begins hilariously enough. But it continues on until it seems Zucker is beating a dead horse.
Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg, in a red wig, isn't given enough to do while Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. gets de-pantsed and sent out into the sweltering desert where he begins to look as desperate as the plot.
**
Rat Race
Starring : Whoopi Goldberg, John Cleese, Cuba Gooding Jr., Rowan Atkinson, Jon Lovitz, Kathy Najimy, Seth Geen, Breckin Meyer, Amy Smart, Wayne Knight, Paul Rodriguez, Vince Vieluf, Lanai Chapman, Dean Cain, Dave Thomas.
Producers: A Paramount picture written by Andy Breckman, directed by Jerry Zucker.
Playing : Apple Valley, Entertainment, Harbour Mall, Holiday, North Dartmouth Mall, Providence Place, Showcase North Attleboro, Showcase Seekonk 1-10, Showcase Warwick, Stonington, Tri-Boro cinemas.
Rated : PG-13, contains violence, adult themes.
Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes.
Ridiculous Rat Race crashes
BY MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer
In the frantic Rat Race, highroller Las Vegas gamblers give a half-dozen randomly selected and unwitting people keys to a New Mexico train station locker containing $2 million, placing bets on who'll get there first in a mad, mad race.
It sounds a bit like one of those reality Survivor shows, which is how Rat Race is being pushed in the TV commercials, but it's actually a reworking of the 1963 film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. That epic comedy, which briefly gained cult status about a decade ago, featured well-known comedy stars of the era -- Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers, even Ethel Merman -- in a race across the desert to find buried treasure.
Frankly, I pretty much felt the same about Rat Race as I had about It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World -- after a short time it begins to look like the writers were desperate to try anything to get a laugh. Lesbian bikers. Adolf Hitler's touring car. A cow hanging from a hot-air balloon. A bus full of women on their way to an I Love Lucy convention, all dressed as Lucy Ricardo.
The Lucy bit promised to be hilarious, but it's a one-joke gag, which, like too much of Rat Race, becomes merely ridiculous and goes on and on and on for a very tiny payoff.
This is too bad because the film was directed by Jerry Zucker, who co-wrote and co-directed such zany 1980s satires as Airplane! before getting more serious with the romantic drama Ghost. Working from a script by Andy Breckman, a writer for David Letterman and Saturday Night Live, Zucker tries to keep Rat Race on a zippy pace. But when some of the gags fall short, the movie grinds to a halt.
"It's a horse race with animals that can think and cheat and lie and play dirty," says the underused John Cleese as the Vegas casino tycoon who sets the plot in motion.
"Play dirty" is the operative term as this collection of losers does anything to reach the goal. Unfortunately, there's no one in the film to identify with and root for. Jon Lovitz's hapless family man drugs his family so he can reach the cash. A sequence in which Amy Smart, as a helicopter pilot, discovers her lover in a swimming pool with his ex-girlfriend and not only buzzes them, but divebombs his truck, wears out its welcome and seems ugly rather than funny.
A pair of lunkheaded scam artist brothers, played by Seth Green and Vince Vieluf (with a pierced tongue that causes him to mangle words), get caught up in a series of dimwitted adventures involving a radar tower, a hot-air balloon, the cow and a monster truck. All are elaborately staged, but overstay their welcome, too.
That's often the problem. A sequence involving Rowan Atkinson as an Italian vacationer whose bouts of narcolepsy make him fall asleep at the most inopportune times, Wayne Knight as a medical emergency van driver and a human heart begins hilariously enough. But it continues on until it seems Zucker is beating a dead horse.
Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg, in a red wig, isn't given enough to do while Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. gets de-pantsed and sent out into the sweltering desert where he begins to look as desperate as the plot.
**
Rat Race
Starring : Whoopi Goldberg, John Cleese, Cuba Gooding Jr., Rowan Atkinson, Jon Lovitz, Kathy Najimy, Seth Geen, Breckin Meyer, Amy Smart, Wayne Knight, Paul Rodriguez, Vince Vieluf, Lanai Chapman, Dean Cain, Dave Thomas.
Producers: A Paramount picture written by Andy Breckman, directed by Jerry Zucker.
Playing : Apple Valley, Entertainment, Harbour Mall, Holiday, North Dartmouth Mall, Providence Place, Showcase North Attleboro, Showcase Seekonk 1-10, Showcase Warwick, Stonington, Tri-Boro cinemas.
Rated : PG-13, contains violence, adult themes.
Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes.
More movie reviews
Movie Review: In ‘Benjamin Button’, a backward life moves forward slowly
Movie Review: Marley is a dog, and so is the movie
Movie Review: ‘The Reader’ is a melancholy look at doomed love
Movie Review: ‘Valkyrie’ plot is thick with tension and tedium
Most active surveys
Updated Thu 1.8.09
What do you think the General Assembly's priorities should be for 2009?
React to Governor Carcieri's plan to curb R.I.'s budget deficit
Does Jim Rice belong in baseball's Hall of Fame?
With the Patriots out of the playoffs, who are you rooting for to win the Super Bowl?
Most e-mailed in the last 24 hours
