| The
Review: |
The race is
on in "Rat Race," the latest screwball comedy about a group
of people given the chance to win two million dollars, depending
on who arrives first. The setup is hokey and the jokes run
from strained to laugh-out-loud funny, and when the final
scene finishes, what you have is a good time at the movies
that isn't the most satisfying of all comedies, but is no
failure.
The film
starts out in Las Vegas, where eight people play eight different
slot machines and each receive a gold coin as an invitation
to a dinner hosted by hotel owner Donald Sinclair (John Cleese).
There's the Cody brothers, Blaine (Vince Vieluf) and Duane
(Seth Greene), mother/daughter duo Vera (Whoopi Goldberg)
and Merrill (Lanei Chapman), play-it-safe Nick (Breckin Meyer),
vacationing family dad Randy (Jon Lovitz), former football
referree Owen (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), and quirky Enrico (Rowan
Atkinson).
They are
given the offer, and off they go, racing to reach the jackpot
before the others can beat them to it. It's a ridiculous setup,
of course, but the the jokes are enough to keep the movie
at a commendable comedic high rather than drown it in one-liners
we've all heard before.
There are
moments that fail in tickling our funny bone, of course; no
comedy is without them. Blaine recently pierced his own tongue,
requiring that he speak awkwardly and without coherence at
times. This is funny at first, but seems to get old when Duane
must re-utter everything he says.
But the moments
that do work are pure gold, a treasure chest of slapstick
gags and humorous jokes that are worth the price of admission.
Goldberg and Chapman are a hit as the mother/daughter group
who become sidetracked when they decline to purchase a squirrel
from roadside vendor Kathy Bates, who guides them in the wrong
direction, and off a cliff. Randy and his family are a complete
knockout when they arrive at a Barbie museum, only to discover
that it is run by Nazis who have ruined their van. In turn,
they steal Adolf Hitler's car, and the results are side-splitting.
Cuba Gooding,
Jr. proves his worth in a comical film as Owen, who made a
bad call in his last football game and keeps running into
people who recognize him. His adventure lands him on a tour
bus filled with Lucille Ball look-alikes on their way to an
"I Love Lucy" convention. I was surprised most especially
by how funny he can be; his mark as a great actor is his ability
to play drama and comedy to perfection.
The real
stars of the show are Rowan Atkinson, who is delectably goofy
and wired-up as Enrico. His bouts of narcolepsy cause him
to come to sudden halts for long periods of sleep, while his
miscomprehension of the English language hits home. When he
hitches a ride with a medic transporting a vital donor organ
for transplant, at all goes downhill for them, with wacky
results.
In closing,
"Rat Race" is not a movie you pick apart for plot development
and story coherence. It barely seems to matter, and if you
try to look for them, you miss out on the laughs, the fun,
and the comedy in one of the funniest films of the summer
season. --
|
| The
Extras |
Unlike much
of the Paramount drivel that hits DVD shelves with little
more than a theatrical trailer and a price of twenty dollars
or more, "Rat Race" actually gives you your money's worth.
Dubbed as a "special collector's edition," the material included
is concise and entertaining, sometimes as humorous as the
movie itself.
"The Making
of Rat Race" is a standard featurette with interviews of the
cast and crew as they discuss their characters, their experiences
on the set, and their feelings about the film. One thing can
be seen in this feature, as well as in the hilarious gag reel
and an extended outtake scene: the entire cast and crew obviously
had a wonderful time making this movie, and it shows in almost
every frame.
The deleted
scenes each have an introduction from director Zucker, who
reveals the reason for which each sequence was cut. Not that
it's too difficult to understand why the scenes were cut;
many of them are long and seem to have little to do with the
movie. "Rat Race" also introduces a new edition to the world
of DVD: in a special section, Zucker and writer Breckmen call
each of the actors by phone to conduct interviews about their
experiences on the movie. Not a groundbreaking feature, but
one that is sure to interest fans of the movie. --
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