Rat Race
During the 1960's there was a movie called It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World that featured several well-known comedians running around America in search of a million dollars. Since then several films such as Cannonball Run and Gumball Rally have duplicated this formula of the ensemble chase comedy. Rat Race is the latest attempt at reviving this overworked and tired genre.
The plot is simple: Six groups of complete strangers have each won a special prize while playing slots in the casino of Donald Sinclair (John Cleese). When the group is assembled to claim their prizes, they are informed by Sinclair that $2 million has been hidden in a locker at the train station in Silver City, New Mexico. Each team is given a key to the locker, and the first team there wins the $2 million. The only rule is that there are no rules -- anything goes. Sinclair and his billionaire buddies soon start betting on who will finish first as the teams use various methods to race down to claim the money
This movie represents a disappointing effort from Director Jerry Zucker. While he has proven himself in such great comedies as Airplane and Kentucky Fried Movie, this film lacks the chemistry and zip to be a great -- let alone good -- comedy. It relies too much on overused site gags instead of good writing. A cow flying through the air is kind of funny the first time you see it. A cow flying through the air many times over becomes repetitive and unimaginative.
This lack of imagination is especially disappointing when you consider the talent Zucker had to work with. The cast includes John Cleese, Whoopi Goldberg, Seth Green, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jon Lovitz, Wayne Knight and Rowan Atchinson. While I'm not a fan of all of these actors, I do appreciate that they offer diverse styles and may appeal to different audiences. Unfortunately, by having so many competing comedic styles on screen, the film stretches itself too thin, so that no one performer really stands out. Cuba Gooding Jr. gives it a good effort, but he's more of a dramatic actor than a comedian. While watching him I almost felt that he is too good of an actor to be wasting his time in this film. Quite frankly, I was disappointed that John Cleese did not have a larger role. In fact, in the DVD some of the outtakes involving Cleese and his billionaire buddies are funnier than most of the scenes they kept in the film.
This film might have been funnier if they had the various teams sabotaging each other's efforts more along the way instead of focusing on the unbelievable problems that each team experiences. In a race with no rules, it's disappointing not seeing these people screw each other over. Lastly, I won't give away the ending, but let's just say it is a complete copout and extremely lame. It might as well have had the entire cast holding hands while singing Kumbaya, it's so full of artificial sweetness and goodwill.
When I rented this movie my expectations were fairly low despite the strong cast. I probably rented it more as a curiousity because it was partially filmed in the city that I reside. Overall, I would say that this film is so dumb and unoriginal that it makes similar films like Cannonball Run seem thought provoking. Rat Race might be O.K. if you're on a really long flight across country when there's nothing else to do, but don't waste your money on it at the video store.
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Go ahead and drink. It might make you forget how bad this film really is.
If she'll spend two hours with you watching this crap, chances are she's a keeper. However, if you're enjoying it too much, she might think that you're mildly retarded.
Buy this film from Amazon.com
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