Rat Race (2001)

I thought it was a good movie, except for Rowan Atkinson, who I found annoying.

I could only watch a little bit of this move as it got worse, and worse. I can not stand a movie where every single person doesn't have one ounce of common sense. If they were going for slap stick comedy they failed miserably. Maybe if a couple of people were stupid it would have been a better movie, but when EVERYONE lacks any common sense at all just makes it worse. I got the plot of the movie, and it would have worked out very nicely, but the screenwriter, and director just made this a terrible horrible movie to have to sit through. I am glad I caught it on t.v., and didn't spend any money to watch it. I would not recommend this movie to anyone. I do like slap stick, and really did like the "Dumb and dumber" movies, but this one not only fell short, it fell off a cliff.

The disappointing sort-of remake of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Rat Race has lots of familiar faces, but little at which one could laugh at loudly. Except for two mooments (sorry)--the cow flying about, strung to the hot air balloon, made my wife and daughter wince at the cruelty, but I was in almost hysterics. Jon Lovitz, getting his upper lip splotched with some sort of jam, I think, and landing in a WWII memorial, forelock flapping, little Chaplin mustache in view, and delivering an undecipherable Hitlerian explanation to the GIs why he has just crashed their party was the bright spot in a very dark and dull comedy. The trouble with Rat Race is that just throws clichéd characters at you and says, "Here, care about them!" The laughs are forced, and except for a few moments of breakout badness, it's fairly vanilla.In Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, human avarice was on display, and a lot of the humor was also forced, but the grandness of scale just made you to laugh, to care about the characters, to want to know what the "Big Dubya" was.Here, it's so hurried and soulless that I began to squirm very quickly. When Dave Thomas tells a high-priced hooker what he'd like, I was laughing, but I was relieved when the punchline got pulled and we were able to move on.Oh, well. Some of the reviewers of this film didn't like the charity ending, and I'll have to admit, I thought it destroyed the cynical nature of the plot, but watching John Cleese, as the billionaire who puts forth the contest to a group of average shrubs to win some serious cash if they can get to a bus locker in Creaking Armpit, New Mexico, was good for a laugh.One.Of three.Not a good average for 112 minutes of movie comedy.

Rat Race (2001): Dir: Jerry Zucker / Cast: Cuba Gooding Jr., Seth Green, Whoopi Goldberg, Amy Smart, Rowan Atkinson: Comedy that walks a fine line between hilarity and stupidity. It is about motivation and greed. A group of tycoons decide to stage a race where the winner receives a substantial amount of money. People are chosen pending upon those whom find a token in a slot machine. It involves various subplots climaxing with a worthwhile message. Director Jerry Zucker is at best with slapstick humour but this hardly rates up there with Top Secret or Airplane. Some scenes misfire such as the ladies getting into the jet, or a family attempting to communicate with Nazis using sign language. The ending does present a great twist with its message but few of the cast are really funny. Cuba Gooding Jr. is interesting as a former referee who cannot seem to live down a bad coin toss. Seth Green is also funny as a schemer who sees this race as an opportunity. Among the performances that are below par are Whoopi Goldberg who can be a great comic but she overacts in this film. Amy Smart is terrible as a helicopter pilot dealing with boyfriend issues. Rowan Atkinson shows up to waste our time with a Mr. Bean performance under a different name. Car chase films are rarely funny but this one can be credited as a technically well made road kill about the motivation of greed. Score: 6 / 10