Rat Race

Dir: Jerry Zucker

2001

**

Rat Race. Otherwise known as It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Rip Off! I absolutely adore Stanley Kramer’s 1963 comedy epic, I was never against the idea that the original story shouldn’t be given a modern update, but I was always opposed to it being remade. While Rat Race wasn’t a remake, it rather insulted the original in its tribute. I liked the change of story; Donald Sinclair, the eccentric owner of The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, devises a new game to entertain the wealthier gamblers who visit his hotel, who have tired of the conventional betting games. Six special tokens are placed in the casino's slot machines, and the winners are told that $2 million in cash is hidden in a duffel bag in a train station locker in Silver City, New Mexico 563 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Each team is given a key to the locker and told to race to the train station to claim the money. However, unbeknownst to the competitors, Sinclair's wealthy patrons are placing bets on who will win. The patrons continue making smaller bets throughout the film, facilitated by Sinclair's assistant Grisham, who meddles with the competitor’s chances to make the game more even. It makes far more sense in 2001 than the original plot would have and John Cleese was the perfect choice as Donald Sinclair. While the premise of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World was a little far-fetched, it didn’t really matter because you could believe that greed could push people to the extreme. The plot was simple, it was the little stories within that really made it special and every single story was brilliant. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World also had the cream of the comedy world at its disposal, with everybody who was anybody in the funny business involved. Rat Race had Vince Wieluf. If you are looking up who Vince Wieluf is right now then my point is proven. Okay, so it does feature Rowan Atkinson, Cuba Gooding Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Seth Green, Dave Thomas, Wayne Knight, Jon Lovitz and Kathy Najimy but I’m afraid the cast is pale in comparison. I would also say that, apart from Cleese, only Jon Lovitz and Kathy Najimy are actually funny. However, the mini stories within the film are generally brilliant. Lovitz and Najimy’s characters visit a Klaus Barbie museum after mistakenly thinking it was a Barbie doll museum. They end up stealing Hitler’s car to escape. In another scene, Cuba Gooding Jr’s character hitches a ride with a coach party full of cross-dressing Lucille Ball fanatics. It is definitely my kind of silly, but, the cast generally don’t have the required physical comedy skills to do the skits justice. Rowan Atkinson pretty much plays Mr Bean, which I found particularly lazy of the filmmakers. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World has a hundred memorable scenes and quotes, Rat Race has about three. The ending of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is one of my favourite of all time, with each character taking it in turn to fall from a two-hundred foot crane, after their greed gets the better of them. In Rat Race the characters attend a Smash Mouth concert and stage dive to ‘All Star’, which is probably the worst song ever written. All Star is a song that used to frequent end credits quite a lot back in the day. It was usually the last insult from a bad film. Rat Race is worse in that it actually features Smash Mouth themselves. It is probably the least rewarding conclusion to a film ever conceived – the complete opposite to It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. A half-hearted idea that should probably have never been made.