$2 million in cash. First one there gets to keep it all. No rules.
This movie’s most obvious ancestor is 1963’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which was one of the earliest blockbuster, all-star-cast comedies. But it’s also inspired by the Cannonball Run movies and, of course, the Airplane! films, since it’s directed by Jerry Zucker, part of the nutty ZAZ team that brought us Airplane!, Hot Shots!, and Naked Gun!, to name three.
Eccentric casino owner Donald Sinclair (John Cleese) selects customers at random to meet him in his executive suite. He excitedly tells them all that he’s placed $2 million in a duffel bag in a storage locker in Silver Spring. He gives each team a key and tells them to go.
The teams include Nick Shaffer (Breckin Meyer), an up-and-coming nice-guy lawyer, and Tracey Faucet (Amy Smart), a helicopter pilot who joins Nick; Enrico Pollini (Rowan Atkinson), a narcoleptic Italian tourist; Vera Baker (Whoopi Goldberg) and Merrill Jennings, a recently reuinited mother and daughter; the Pear Family, headed by father Randy (Jon Lovitz) and mother Bev (Kathy Najimy); Duane and Blaine Cody (Seth Green and Vince Vieluf), two ne’er-do-well brothers; and Owen Pendelton (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), a disgraced NFL referee.
With many of these big-budget slapstick comedies, often there’s just a lot of slop with a few gems mixed in. But among the cast are some very talented comedic actors, and they’re given a wonderful script to work with. No, scratch that – these guys have FUN with this movie. And with a wacked mind like Zucker’s at the helm, you know you’re in for a treat.
There’s an encounter with an airborne cow. There’s a monster truck rally. There’s a busload of Lucille Ball impersonators – and they never break character! There’s an attack by a helicopter on an above-ground pool. There’s a Barbie museum – but it’s not the doll. And the pacing is like quicksilver, too. You’ve hardly caught your breath after one contestant’s experience when another one begins anew.
There aren’t any villains in this, except for Sinclair himself, and that means you can root for any of the teams to win. Happily, none of the actors takes the movie seriously, and that’s a huge asset. And while we don’t know any of the characters all that well, each has his or her own idiosyncrasies to build on. Atkinson’s narcoleptic will remind some viewers of Mr. Bean, who he played so well on British TV and on the big screen. He falls asleep in the hotel lobby, for crying out loud! How cool!
An engaging, gregarious cast and a crisp, drop-dead-hilarious script keep this movie moving gracefully. It’s a fine film for anyone, even the younger set.
Rat Race: 8
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