“Rat Race” enters theaters with a promise. All director Jerry Zucker wants to do is make us laugh. The director of such films as “Airplane” and Hot Pursuit” has set out to do another madcap comedy may be an anti-intellectual but we still love him. His new film “Rat Race” lacks both class in many cases originality.

It’s supposed to be made in the vein of 1960’s race films like “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”, “The Great Race”, and “Those Magnificent Men And Their Flying Machines” and at times it does this well.

“Rat Race” is a comic charmer in the middle of a not so banner year for film. It’s hard to laugh at slapstick when it's not done properly and impossible not to laugh when it is done right. “Rat Race is a mixture of right and wrong slapstick.

Different commoners have been randomly selected to participate in a race put on by a Vegas tycoon, Donald Sinclair (the incomparable John Cleese). This is a race from Las Vegas, NV to Silver City, NM. In a locker at the Silver City railroad station is a duffel bag containing two million dollars. First one to open the locker get the cash. Sinclair is making more money by having gamblers place bets on which of these people will get to the money first.

It does start off slowly, with some jokes not quite working, but then, faster than the race it depicts, the laughs start coming. If you’re disappointed by the film then you went in expecting a Merchant Ivory film instead of a broad comedy. And never fear, the biggest laughs in “Rat Race” are not found in the trailer.

Now, this film is in no way shape or form flawless. It does have its bad moments and the cast is not as great as the ensemble of the 60’s. Instead of Jack Lemmon, Peter Falk, and Tony Curtis we get people like Cuba Gooding Jr., Wayne Knight and Brecken Meyer. In today’s Hollywood it’s nearly impossible to put together a large ensemble of big stars. Oh, it can be done, but it will cost you an arm and a leg. If it cost 35 million to get Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker to do “Rush Hour 2” think about how much it would cost to get Eddie Murphy, Julia Roberts and Jim Carrey to be in a film together. The stellar cast in the upcoming remake of “Ocean’s Eleven” proves that stars are able to put their egos aside to work together though.


The amazing thing is that this ensemble, also including John Cleese, John Lovitz, Amy Smart, Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Bates, Rowan Attkinson, Dave Thomas, Kathy Nijemy and Seth Green, are sometimes able to pull it off with flair; yet other times flunk under the pressure. It is the golden moments that make it well worth the ticket price. It’s evident that the cast had a blast making this film and the audience will have a blast watching it. Whether it’s seeing a pantless Cuba being chased by a mob of Lucille Ball impersonators or Jon Lovitz speaking in front of WW II veterans you’ll be sure to laugh so hard you’ll miss some good jokes and have to see the film all over again. The Lovitz scene had me laughing harder than I have in years, but I won’t give it away.

Zucker makes sure that the heroes (or they can also be seen as victims) of the film are part ordinary Joe and part kooky imbeciles. You have the nice guy lawyer (Breckin Meyer) who teams up with goody-two-shoes pilot (Amy Smart); a mother and daughter team (Whoopi Goldberg and Lanai Chapman); an embarrassed football referee (Cuba Gooding Jr.), a goofy and stupid Italian who sleeps a lot (Rowan Atkinson), some small time crooks (Seth Green and Vince Vieluf); and a fighting couple (Jon Lovitz and Kathy Najimy) along with their two kids.

There are a few moments of pure zany genius, proving that Zucker has not completely lost his touch. “Rat Race” never attains the heights of some of the other comedies he has been involved with directing or producing. There are very short stretches that are not played for laughs and adding some incongruity to the fun. I yearned for a Leslie Nielsen type to appear but the closest to that is John Cleese and he’s not even in the film that much. When he does appear, complete with false pearly whites that are reminiscent of the crystal smile that Tony Curtis sported in “The Great Race”, he is able to add a little bit of class.

The gags work because of the way they are set up. These gags are age old filled with pratfalls, cars going over cliffs, and adults acting like children. But when it could come across as familiar, it comes across as a fresh update of classic gags. Whoopi Goldberg and Lanai Chapman drive their car off a cliff because they did not purchase a squirrel from crazy squirrel woman Kathy Bates. Greene and Vieluf also have fun with the plan gone bad concept.

The ending tries to tie everything up with a moral message and this nearly ruins the fun. A flamboyant farce like this does not need a point or a message and it’s disappointing to see a film wallow through mawkishness after nearly 2 hours of ludicrous bedlam.

One of the gems in the film is it’s soundtrack. It’s full of old classical and non classical favorites. It adds to the jovial pace of action.

When all is said and done, “Rat Race” is just a spec on the window of the history of comedy. When you compare it to more recent Hollywood fair it’s at least passable enough to supply a decent amount of fun. That’s more than I
expected.


Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older