After making his film debut in the excellent 48 HRS., Eddie Murphy followed up with Trading Places, one of director John Landis' best comedies. (Other memorable Landis films also starred "Saturday Night Live" alumni, The Blues Brothers and Animal House.) Like 48 HRS., Trading Places was a box office smash, establishing Eddie Murphy as one of the biggest draws in Hollywood.
Murphy had now shown his versatility: he could play a tough action hero, as he would repeat in his Beverly Hills Cop films, or a comedian leading man in films that transcended race, as he would repeat in Coming to America. The quality of Murphy's films would decline, unfortunately. Best Defense, his third feature, showed that he could not overcome a bad script or story. It may be that his first two features are still his best, with Trading Places being his best comedy.
Trading Places wasn't perfect, of course. The most obvious weakness was a gag featuring a gorilla romancing a man in a gorilla suit. You'd think that the gorilla would know the difference, but one can't help but laugh anyway. Winthorpe dons a Santa Claus suit to plant drugs in Valentine's desk, but this behavior doesn't fit his character. Still, it's fun to watch him pull a fish out of his beard, and gnaw at it in front of disgusted subway passengers.
Would Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis, as Winthorpe's bemused new love interest) really remove her bra to help Winthorpe recover from his cold? Would two wealthy businessmen risk their brokerages to settle a dollar bet? Could any woman possibly be as shallow as Penelope, Winthrope's spoiled fiancee? No, no, and no, but again, that doesn't seem to make the characters or the situations any less entertaining.
The first half of Trading Places is the best, tracing the fall of Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd). He is the preppy, snobbish, conceited top broker at Duke and Duke. He has a servant, Coleman (Denholm Elliot). He has a luxury home, a limousine, and a well-funded bank account. He has a gorgeous fiancee (Kristin Holby) and many blue-blooded, fair weather friends.
However, all he owns is at the will of his employers, the elderly Duke brothers. Randolph (Ralph Bellamy) seems more sympathetic than Mortimer (Don Ameche). But both are amoral, despicable, and blessed with their best supporting roles in many years. (Ameche and Bellamy were household names during the 1940s.) They make a great pair of Christmas Scrooges, and would later have a cameo in Eddie Murphy's Coming to America.
The Dukes have Winthorpe ruined, to see whether he will resort to crime. To take his place, street person and con artist Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy) is quickly trained to take his place. This is an old theme (at least dating to Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper", although that switch was voluntary). It seems original here, partly because of the racial implications ("Mad" Magazine's parody was titled "Trading Races"), but mostly because the characters are so well written.
Valentine's sudden transformation into a studious manager who works on Christmas Eve isn't any more plausible than Winthorpe's brief descent into madness. But it's no good to complain, as a funny or ironic scene always seems to follow. (84/100)
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