Course folle

AIRPLANE! crashes into MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD!

Duck and cover. The antics are silly, but they come at you fast and furious -- a transvestile Lucy (in a whole bunch of Lucys), squirrels, cows, balloons, a dead dog, a heart transplant, car wrecks, bowel movements, a bullet train, and much much more.

It's slapstick and double take time in this zany comedy about human greed and just plain old stupidity. The story line gets pretty ragged at times but it is funny. And it even has a message.

If you want to lose yourself for two hours in a nutty comedy, this is a good bet.

RAT RACE / (2001) *** (out of four

"Rat Race" revives a genre Hollywood has neglected since the sixties: the big event, ensemble chase comedy. Who better to breathe life into the subject than Jerry Zucker, the mastermind behind the "Naked Gun" films, and "Airplane," two of the most hilarious movies I have seen. After years of directing straight dramas, Zucker says he is thrilled to be back doing comedy. "It's very visual and there are lots of big visual stunts," Zucker explains in the film's production notes, "kind of a James Bond comedy in a way because there are so many sight gags."

Good comparison-"Race Race" is indeed a visual comedy. Its laugh-a-minute attitude works for the creative situations. The audience does not necessarily laugh at every single joke the movie throws, but the humor is timed well. "Rat Race" also contains a terrific cast and provides enough laughs to be worthy of at least one viewing.

John Cleese stars as the eccentric Las Vegas casino tycoon named Donald Sinclair. He wants to keep his wealthy, high stakes gamblers interested in his gambling techniques so he arranges a new, quasi-legal sporting event for them to bet on: a human rat race.

Sinclair randomly places six golden coins in several different slot machines. The customer service sends the winners to a large banquet room where the characters learn of a two million dollar jackpot resting in a duffel bag, inside a locker, within the city of Silver City, New Mexico-seven hundred miles away. The fist one there keeps all of the money, tax-free. "…the odds of winning are one and six…" explains Sinclair. "There's only one rule: there are no rules!" The players include a vast variety of different characters. There is Vera Baker (Whoopi Goldberg), who, after giving her child up for adoption as a baby, has decided to meet her daughter, Merrill (Lanai Chapman). Owen Temleton (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), an NFL coach who recently blew an important game, has come to the sin city to forget his horrendous mistake. Mr. Pollini (Rowan Akinson from "Bean") is an exuberantly cheerful, but narcoleptic, Italian fellow. Randy Pear (Jon Lovitz), and his family is vacationing when he slips off to play slots and wins the chance of a lifetime. The Cody brothers (Seth Green and Vince Vieluf), are first to cause trouble in any crowd. Finally, Nick (Breckin Meyer) a skeptical young lawyer-in-training, meets a charming young woman (Amy Smart), and encounters plenty of adventures with her.

"Rat Race" offers plenty of hit and miss humor. Much of it misses, but much of it hits the mark as well. The majority of the humor is physical and exaggerated. Very little offers sharp, witty satire on any part of culture. The film says something about greed in a zany sort of way, but for the most part this is just a two hour laugh riot, nothing more, nothing less.

However, this is a tricky script to write, and for the overall result to provide this much effective comic material, Andrew Breckman's ingenious script is indeed successful. It's not easy writing a comedy like this, and Breckman does indeed run into a few problems in the overcrowded plot. Even more difficult is creating a conclusion for a story like this. No matter how you end it, you are certain to displease at least some audience members. Breckman has found a way to have his cake and eat it too. I would never dream of revealing how this race concludes itself, but I will say it is not exceedingly satisfying, but sure does work over the obvious other possibilities.

"Rat Race" is one of the funniest movies of the year. It's energetic, irrelevant, and entertaining. You are sure to have a decent time.

I must say that I had some very high expectations when I saw the names of the actors that played a role in this comedy. With people like John Cleese and Rowan Atkinson, I hoped for the best, although I must also admit that I'm not a fan of Whoopi Goldberg, which still made me doubt about it. However, I didn't see it as a reason not to watch this movie and that's why I gave this "Rat Race" a try.

When a group of billionaires is searching for something new to bet on, they find the perfect solution for their 'problem' in the new game that Las Vegas casino owner Donald P. Sinclair has invented. He has pulled a group of six strangers together and tells them that they will have to race to Silver City, New Mexico, where the first one to arrive will be able to retrieve $2 million hidden in a locker. The only rule is that there are no rules. Everything is allowed in order to get there first. At first they don't really believe this is a true race, but it doesn't take long before the narcoleptic Italian immigrant, the desperate father, the disgraced NFL referee, the decent lawyer, a team made up by a mother and daughter and another one made up by two weird brothers all embark on this weird adventure.

What I liked most about this comedy was that it didn't rely on all those fart jokes and other toilet humor that you find too often in today's comedies. This is still a movie full of decent jokes and I must say that I had some very good laughs with it. However, that doesn't mean that this was a perfect movie. Take for instance Rowan Atkinson. I normally like all his parts, but this time I was quite disappointed by his performance. I'm not saying that I know someone better to play the role of Enrico Pollini, but this certainly wasn't Atkinson's finest. On the other hand I must say that John Cleese was very nice as the eccentric casino owner.

Overall this isn't the best comedy ever, but I like to see it as one of those guilty pleasures, which can sometimes lighten up a miserable day. The story is completely over-the-top and absurd, but that's OK, because this is a comedy. The acting is pretty good most of the time and especially John Cleese and Cuba Gooding Jr. were a nice surprise. That's why I give this movie a rating between 6.5/10 and 7/10.

I haven't seen "It's a Mad ... etc. World" (is it four Mads or five? I can never remember), so it's not fair to make comparisons - but the changes I know about sound as though they're improvements. The sum of money in the original film was $350 000; this time it's $2 million, which (adjusting for inflation) is considerably less. In the original the money was a fifteen-year-old buried treasure; here, it's just money. An eccentric squillionaire has put it in a locker without explanation. WE get an explanation, of sorts, but the racers do not - so there is no romance attached to the prize, which means that all of their actions are PURE expressions of greed. (John Cleese is the squillionaire, and while his cameo in "The World Is Not Enough" proved that he could, with the right material, fail to be funny, he and his coterie of wealthy compulsive gamblers are hilarious here. It's good counterpoint humour, since they're actually the least greedy, most disinterested people involved in the chase.)

A criticism levelled at the original was that innocent, well-meaning bystanders got hurt - that it was meant to be a joke when their property was destroyed, but the joke wasn't funny. "Rat Race" avoids being open to the same charge by making the world an even more venal one. The ambulance-chasing lawyer, the live organ courier, the quirky roadside squirrel-seller, the key-cutter, the garage mechanic, the neo-Nazis, the vengeful taxi driver ... all these people have less attractive personalities than any of the racers. Only a few of them are punished, but among them are the only outsiders to be punished at all. (With the exception, I'll admit, of people we never see, like the anonymous owners of cars that are run over in the parking lot.)

Whoopi Goldberg plays it straight, which suits her. I can't fault the acting anywhere, but I do wish that Rowan Atkinson hadn't been cast as the loopy, dim-witted Italian (I can't see this picture playing in Italy at all). To be sure, he brings the role off, and he's the only person who could have done so - but he would have been funnier if he'd been allowed to be more intelligent, to have a little more rat cunning hiding beneath the surface. (For half a second, he DOES exhibit cunning: it's by far his funniest moment.)

All scenes before the race is announced fall flat. Timing and motivation just weren't there, and I even wondered afterwards if Zucker had handed his establishing scenes to an ungifted underling. But I don't want to carp at a funny film by saying it could have been funnier. Things pick up considerably as soon as John Cleese outlines the central premise; from then on the film is never less than inventive, and even if (for some reason) you don't find it funny, you must admit that those involved at least had the right IDEA about comedy.

It would be a shame to be too sophisticated to enjoy this silly movie. Critics hammered it for being a remake of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, or accused it of reverting back to MMMMW's formula of selling the movie with a hundred big names who do little more than mug for the camera.

But these guys are all busting their butts to entertain us. Yes, post-adolescents will be able to see most of the gags coming a mile away, but when their execution surpasses our expectations what's not to like? This is, after all, directed by the same Zucker who gave us Airplane, and it shares the same DNA.

Watch it with your kids, and appreciate the ending that leaves them with a nice message as a bonus. Even if you only cherry pick the scenes featuring a bus load of Lucy impersonators it's worth the rental.