Rat Race is a funny movie. In a mostly lackluster year, it was a bright spot of fun and gleefully orchestrated lunacy. Director Jerry Zucker didn't achieve the inspired one-of-a-kind success of Airplane!, but he did succeed in making his audience laugh. They say good comedy isn't easy and in this movie even the ingenious gags can go to the edge of too far. But still, it's great fun to watch.
The Race Is On
Six strangers in a Las Vegas casino unwittingly become contestants in an unusual race when they each receive a special gold coin from a slot machine. The coin directs them to a meeting where Donald Sinclair, the owner of the casino (played with joyful decadence by John Cleese), challenges them to race to the town of Silver City, New Mexico and be the first to grab a $2 million prize from a locker in the train station. They all assume he's kidding. Then they realize he's not. And … they're off.
What follows stretches credibility, of course, but the setups are skillfully handled and the actors are obviously having a ball. Sinclair sets the whole thing in motion (watch the movie to find out why) and then sits back to cheer on the frenzied action. The cast includes Whoopi Goldberg and Cuba Gooding Jr. who are, according to one of the special features on this DVD, making history as they appear in the first film to star two African-American Academy Award-winners. Seth Green, Jon Lovitz, Brekin Meyer, Rowan Atkinson, Kathy Najimy, Amy Smart and a completely deadpan Dave Thomas round out the ensemble. Don't miss the hilarious Kathy Bates in a cameo only she could inhabit so well.
What "Special" Features?
The DVD comes with a variety of special features, none of which lives up to the inspiration of the movie itself. The worst of all is a section called "Jerry and Andy Call the Actors." In this uninteresting piece, Zucker and writer Andy Breckman place spontaneous phone calls to various members of the cast. The idea is to catch them at an unexpected moment. Instead, the vignettes become confirmation for the premise that comedians are just ordinary people who aren't funny without a script — unless you are fascinated by people who are "on their way home" or "just about to jump into the shower."
The "making of" documentary is essentially a promo puff piece with some information about how Rat Race was conceived and shot. The most interesting part of the interview with director Jerry Zucker and writer Andy Breckman is Andy's statement that he's written a lot of screenplays but this is the first one that actually became a movie. He's understandably pleased about that.
The deleted scenes demonstrate that, for a change, the best shots made it into the movie. And that Mr. Zucker is good at knowing when to cut a scene that just isn't working.
Rat Race is technically well-presented in a widescreen version, enhanced for 16x9 TVS. Audio is in English (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround), English (Dolby Surround) and French (Dolby Surround), and subtitles are available in English.
— ELAINE SPOONER
Rat Race is a funny movie. In a mostly lackluster year, it was a bright spot of fun and gleefully orchestrated lunacy. Director