Urine Couch AM Movie Club: Rat Race

2001 comedy movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: An eccentric rich guy collects a group of Vegas vacationers and sends them on a race to retrieve a briefcase with two millions dollars hidden within a New Mexican storage locker. He and his friends bet on who will be first while the racers scheme to get ahead.

I saw this on a plane once and now again on network television; in other words, I've yet to see this entire movie. And if that means I've missed a potential Whoopi Goldberg nude scene, I may have to grab it on dvd from a K-Mart clearance rack and watch it again. This doesn't succeed because of any originality. It's been done and done again with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (That's Mad) and The Cannonball Run 3. But despite the lack of Buddy Hackett or Burt Reynolds' mustache, this brings some unexpected laughs because its writer (WFMU's own [and Monk creator/writer Andy Breckman) takes it some places other writers might not dare take it. You get some poking fun at mental illness, child molestation, sacred cow Lucille Ball, and the abuse of livestock. Oh, and Hitler. The humor's broad, ranging from dumb-as-dumb-gets slapstick to a lot of clever bits. Like the aforementioned road race movies, this has a huge cast. Rowan Atkinson ranges from absolutely brilliantly comic to really annoying. Jon Lovitz is always a guy who I don't want to like but just can't help myself. And John Cleese is hilarious in a role that might be largely improvised. This is rapidly-paced for the OCD crowd and has a lot of unpredictable fun. My biggest gripe--the use of "Who Let the Dogs Out?" which really cheapens the proceedings.

Do any of you know of a movie that has a Whoopi Goldberg nude scene? I'll take partial nudity even. Thanks in advance!

1 comment:

l@rstonovich said...

think i saw this in the theater just because of Breckman's role as the writer. i think this was before Monk because I would have known better. the funniest part is where that guy is billed for the pornos at the hotel and she reads the titles out loud.