Rat Race

Rat Race is an example of a very purile, silly comedy film. And yet I find it absolutely brilliant. It’s a film about a group of people who are told that there is $2 million sitting in a bag in New Mexico and the first person to reach the locker from Las Vegas will keep it all. Naturally, hilarious scenarios unfold on screen which will be guaranteed to make you laugh at least once.

With a cast that many people will recognise, Rat Race is a very good example of how enjoyable a comedy film can be. Starring Rowan Atkinson, Breckin Meyer, Whoopi Goldberg, Seth Green, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jon Lovitz and John Cleese, Rat Race has a cast that many people will be able to enjoy. The scenarios that the actors get involved with are so unpredictable that you just don’t see them coming. From Cuba Gooding Jr. trying to take a taxi to New Mexico and ending up driving full of Lucille Ball  enthusiasts, to Jon Lovitz gatecrashing a Veterans meeting in Hitler’s car and Whoopi Goldberg breaking the land-speed record with her estranged daughter, there is so much unpredictability that the comedy flows brilliantly.

The nature of the film is such that each character’s fate is presented in an order, so you are shown what is happening to each character one after the other. Because there are so many characters, by the time you see each one again you realise that it has been a while since you last saw them, and almost laugh at the introduction of them again. Rat Race manages to deal with the problems around this very well though. You never feel like there are too many characters, and (although there probably are too many characters), the way the film brings them all in is perfect.

Rowan Atkinson, who I feel is one of the greatest British comedic actors ever, is absolutely side-splitting here, and despite having seen the film countless times I always find myself laughing the most at his parts. What makes it even better is his comedy Italian accent. He has obviously exaggerated it for comedic effect, and it does come across as very funny. Also, there are so many of Rowan Atkinson’s lines that are repeatable that the film will leave a couple of quotes in your memory bank.

All the other actors are pretty funny too, especially Jon Lovitz, but I found Seth Green and Vince Vieluf to be fairly annoying. I’m not the biggest fan of Seth Green as an actor and have never seen Vieluf in anything before or after this. Their storyline is fairly amusing, but Green’s character is inherently selfish throughout the film (right up until the end) and this makes me go off him a bit and feel that maybe he deserves his nightmare journey to New Mexico.

The whole film has a bit of a ‘well you just couldn’t make that up’ atmosphere to it, and this is why it is so funny. The scenarios that happen seem perfectly plausible on screen but when you step back and think about it they are utterly ridiculous. Obviously in a comedy film, plausible ridiculousness is what is aimed for, and Rat race achieves this very well. I cannot work out though whether I am biased towards Rat Race because of how much I enjoyed it the first time I watched it.

If I had one criticism of the film then it would be that some of the actors do not actually play a character wholly different from most of the characters they otherwise play. Breckin Meyer plays the nice guy who never takes a risk, Seth Green plays the moody teenager-esque bloke, John Cleese is the eccentric hotel owner (now which hugely successful British sitcom does that remind you of?) and Rowan Atkinson, although funny, is funny in the same way he normally is. In terms of the cast, it is impressive but not astounding.

However, despite this I am fairly confident that Rat Race will have you laughing at least once. If you are not made of stone then you should find yourself giggling along to the hilarious scenes unfolding in front of you. I rate Rat Race very highly and thoroughly recommend that you give it a watch.