I knew Rat Race was going to be a terrible movie the minute Whoopi Goldberg walked onscreen. It’s not that I despise Whoopi or anything like that. She had her moments some twenty years ago in the first of the Comic Relief shows and she did date Ted Danson. No, it was the simple fact that there really has never been a good Whoopi Goldberg movie (Don’t even think about saying Ghost. Have you watched the clay scene lately? Even Jumping Jack Flash was better). Rat Race is now officially added to the Whoopi list of movies no one really wants to watch unless they’re on TNT.
Okay, so Rat Race isn’t really that bad of a movie. Wait. Actually, yes it is. In an attempt to update the classic romp that is A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and, on a lesser scale, the 1980’s classic Midnight Madness in which a man decides to spend the rest of his life at the Pabst Blue Ribbon brewery, they have once again produced drivel. Even though the audience at the screening I attended seemed to laugh at everything in this movie, the looks on their faces suggested that they weren’t laughing with the movie but rather at it. Or at least I hope that’s what they were doing.
The plot goes something like this: A multimillionaire (John Cleese in the worst move of his career) randomly selects a group of people from his casino in Las Vegas to take part in a cross country race to a locker containing two million dollars. He and his rich friends bet on the outcome. Along the way we witness flying cows, lost hearts (literally), helicopter chases, a bus full of I Love Lucy impersonators (who in the hell thought that would be funny?) and the band Smashmouth performing – yep, you guessed it – the ridiculously overplayed “All Star”. I mean, come on, how many more times to we have to hear this song before filmmakers and advertisers realize that it’s long since reached it’s expiration date?
But I digress. Further along our journey, we also get to see the end of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s career which, frankly, isn’t quite as remarkable as he or the Academy Of Arts would like us to think (remember Chill Factor?). To his credit, he does try to lay it on thick as a referee who blew a coin toss in a crucial football game, a point which does nothing for the movie or his character. We also see the lovely Amy Smart (the girl in Outside Providence and Road Trip) and Breckin Meyer (also of Road Trip fame) take similar plunges off the future made-for-tv movie star career cliff. I only hope that they have better judgment next time. I hear that Tina Yothers is getting lonely.
Lastly, we have Jon Lovitz. Here’s a good rule of thumb when judging a movie: when the scenes with Jon Lovitz make his humor seem like absolute genius next to the rest of the movie, chances are pretty good you wasted your money and your time.
+ marc ruppel
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.