Rat Race (PG-13)
Vulgar and lowbrow, but very funny.
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Seen the movie?
Movie details
- Studio: Paramount Pictures
- Directed By: Jerry Zucker
- Release Date: 08/17/2001
- Genre: Comedy
- MPAA Rating: PG-13
- MPAA Explanation: some vulgar humor and strong language
Parents need to know
Parents need to know that this PG-13 movie has some vulgar humor, including bathroom jokes, a weird proposition made to a prostitute, an offensive porn movie title, and a cross-dressing man. A multiply-pierced woman flashes her breasts as a way of flirting with a man she does not know (nothing seen).
Families can talk about Brecken Meyers's statement that "Good things take time, but great things happen all at once." Why does money make people take such foolish risks? Who were you rooting for? Why? Compare the amount at issue in this movie with the amount that people were racing for in "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World." Why is it so much more?
Families can talk about Brecken Meyers's statement that "Good things take time, but great things happen all at once." Why does money make people take such foolish risks? Who were you rooting for? Why? Compare the amount at issue in this movie with the amount that people were racing for in "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World." Why is it so much more?
Message
Social Behavior:
Racially diverse characters
Consumerism:
Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:
Drinking
Violence
Comic peril and violence, no characters hurt; skeleton
Sex
Reference to pornography, prostitute, charater flashes her breasts (offscreen)
Language
Some crude language, potty humor
Common Sense says
What's the story?
Reviewed by Nell Minow
In RAT RACE, casino owner Sinclair (John Cleese) has a plan to attract the really high rollers -- a race between creatures who can think, plan, and lie -- humans. Six randomly selected customers of the casino are each given a key to a box in a Utah train station. Inside the box is $2 million, and the first one there gets it all. The six include Rowan Atkinson as a narcoleptic Italian, Cuba Gooding, Jr. as a disgraced football referee, Whoopi Goldberg as a woman just reunited with the daughter she hasn't seen since she was a baby, Brecken Meyer as a conservative lawyer who always plays by the rules, Jon Lovitz as a father on vacation with his family, and Seth Green and Vince Vieleuf as small-time con artists. Along the way, they meet up with the prettiest helicopter pilot in the world (Amy Smart), neo-Nazis, real-life superlawyer Gloria Allred, a rocket car, a truck driver delivering some very important and fragile cargo, and a bus full of Lucy impersonators. There is a lot of good, old-fashioned, hit-on-the-head humor, but it's like a Road Runner cartoon -- everyone bounces back without a scratch in the next scene, ready to get right back into the game.
Is it any good?
Rat Race is a loving salute to the spirit of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, a splendid salute to slapstick that featured just about everyone who happened to be in Hollywood in 1965. Rat Race is outrageous, cheerfully vulgar, undeniably lowbrow, and very, very funny. Director Jerry Zucker, shows the sure hand with sight gags that brought us Airplane!. While this one does not have that movie's surreal moments of comic ecstasy, its stronger narrative coherence and more interesting characters make it almost as satisfying.
All of the performances are delights. Kathy Bates's brief cameo as a woman who really likes squirrels and Amy Smart's expression when she dive-bombs her cheating boyfriend (Dean Cain), Vieluf's encounter with his multi-pierced dream girl, Seth Green's encounter with a monster truck rally, and Kathy Najimy's encounter with the Barbie Museum are among the funniest movie moments in years. And the final resolution beats It's a Mad...World by a thousandfold.
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Age 13+
Posted on 08/09/07 by Anonymous Adult contributor
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Posted on 06/02/03 by Anonymous Adult contributor
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Age 13+
Posted on 08/09/07 by Anonymous Adult contributor
Age 13+
Posted on 06/02/03 by Anonymous Adult contributor
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