Rat Race is structured as a series of bad and tasteless jokes strung together by a flimsy clothesline of a plot dealing with a race of a bunch of random people trying to reach the same destination in order to obtain a huge stash of money that may or may not even really be there. Rat Race is disappointing from the very beginning, because it starts off by showing four or five of the exact scenes that we already saw in the preview and that have therefore lost all effectiveness. This is not a movie based on reality there can really be no question that even the most eccentric of casino owners would never seriously consider picking a bunch of random gamblers out of their casinos and sending them off on this all-expenses-paid excursion to find a duffle bag containing two million dollars. Sure, these casino guys are all ridiculously rich, but Rat Race doesn't acknowledge the fact that rich people didn't get rich by giving money away. There is no financial return at all in the rat race portrayed here, or even any publicity!
(spoilers but does it really matter?) Rat Race is filled with actors who delivered goofy performances that are far below both their iconography and their reputations as actors. Cuba Gooding Jr. - after great performances in infinitely superior films like As Good As It Gets, Jerry Maguire, Outbreak, and A Few Good Men performs several idiotic and humiliating skits throughout the course of this horribly disappointing movie. John Cleese manages to deliver some of the only funny lines in the entire film through his comical dentures, but still sinks far below his talent in this borefest. Other bad career choices were made by Seth Green, Amy Smart, and even the more negligible actors, such as Whoopi Goldberg, Rowan Atkinson, and Jon Lovitz. Seth Green, actually, is mostly in a bad role by association. His brother in the film is one of the dumbest characters I've ever seen in a movie, and his disgusting tongue piercing only serves to enhance his tremendous stupidity. I've had my tongue double-pierced since early 1997, have made little to no changes in my oral hygiene, and have never had an infection. If his tongue was that infected, it is entirely a result of his own idiocy (as we soon learn, with the realization that his piercing is self-inflicted), and therefore commands no sympathy or respect. If he wants sympathy, Major Payne can explain to him where to find it. Incidentally, the way he met a girl on the freeway (who shows up later at the Smash Mouth concert) was a shocking move to an even lower level.
The movie goes wrong at the very beginning. It's clear that a mass travel to a single location is not the foundation of a good comedy, so they decided to throw in this ludicrous scene where Duane Cody (Seth Green) and his idiot brother get their jeep dragged up the sonar station at the airport in an attempt to ground all flights so that their opponents will not be able to fly to the location of the money (and if they had caught their flight in the first place, the movie would have been over in minutes and we would all have been spared). So at the expense of their remaining means of travel, they have successfully drowned out radio airwaves and grounded all flights. It's too bad the movie was released so soon, because if they had waited until after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the scene would almost certainly have been changed, and the movie could only have been better. This is one of the most moronic scenes in the entire movie, which makes you wonder why they didn't just have Cleese's character add in a stipulation that all transportation must be done on the ground. If the movie had been set for release after the catastrophic terrorist attacks, and they had decided to remove the scene, such a stipulation is almost certainly the thing that they would have decided on, both because it would be the fastest and cheapest replacement, but also because such a tragic event would surely make them realize how foolish the scene was to begin with.
While Rat Race manages to avoid sinking to the abysmal level of other ludicrous comedies like the Scary Movies, it is clearly a mindless film that does not quite manage to redeem itself by having at least one or two things in it that can be taken seriously enough for it to be funny. The movie is bad enough even without the appearance of Smash Mouth at the end of the film, who are playing a concert for the poor. The way that all of the contestants in the movie stumble on stage with their newfound wealth at the end of the flim (I typed that accidentally just now, but it strikes me as a better word ), ultimately deciding to donate it to the poor, is both insulting and disappointing. Sure, it would be a bad idea to make a movie that did nothing but promote greed, but all that time and effort by the characters as well as the audience is completely wasted (this is also one of the many things that ruined Titanic). It certainly is a good cause, but it is entirely uninteresting. You'd think that the virtually endless possibilities of the cinema would have inspired the film's writer (or writers, could there possibly have been more than one?) to come up with something more creative than this. In reality, donating to the poor, especially such a huge amount of money, is truly honorable and earns you a well-deserved interview and article in the newspaper. In the movies, it is a cheap way to get out of being accused of advertising greed, and winds up as little more than a boring end to a bad movie.
(spoilers but does it really matter?) Rat Race is filled with actors who delivered goofy performances that are far below both their iconography and their reputations as actors. Cuba Gooding Jr. - after great performances in infinitely superior films like As Good As It Gets, Jerry Maguire, Outbreak, and A Few Good Men performs several idiotic and humiliating skits throughout the course of this horribly disappointing movie. John Cleese manages to deliver some of the only funny lines in the entire film through his comical dentures, but still sinks far below his talent in this borefest. Other bad career choices were made by Seth Green, Amy Smart, and even the more negligible actors, such as Whoopi Goldberg, Rowan Atkinson, and Jon Lovitz. Seth Green, actually, is mostly in a bad role by association. His brother in the film is one of the dumbest characters I've ever seen in a movie, and his disgusting tongue piercing only serves to enhance his tremendous stupidity. I've had my tongue double-pierced since early 1997, have made little to no changes in my oral hygiene, and have never had an infection. If his tongue was that infected, it is entirely a result of his own idiocy (as we soon learn, with the realization that his piercing is self-inflicted), and therefore commands no sympathy or respect. If he wants sympathy, Major Payne can explain to him where to find it. Incidentally, the way he met a girl on the freeway (who shows up later at the Smash Mouth concert) was a shocking move to an even lower level.
The movie goes wrong at the very beginning. It's clear that a mass travel to a single location is not the foundation of a good comedy, so they decided to throw in this ludicrous scene where Duane Cody (Seth Green) and his idiot brother get their jeep dragged up the sonar station at the airport in an attempt to ground all flights so that their opponents will not be able to fly to the location of the money (and if they had caught their flight in the first place, the movie would have been over in minutes and we would all have been spared). So at the expense of their remaining means of travel, they have successfully drowned out radio airwaves and grounded all flights. It's too bad the movie was released so soon, because if they had waited until after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the scene would almost certainly have been changed, and the movie could only have been better. This is one of the most moronic scenes in the entire movie, which makes you wonder why they didn't just have Cleese's character add in a stipulation that all transportation must be done on the ground. If the movie had been set for release after the catastrophic terrorist attacks, and they had decided to remove the scene, such a stipulation is almost certainly the thing that they would have decided on, both because it would be the fastest and cheapest replacement, but also because such a tragic event would surely make them realize how foolish the scene was to begin with.
While Rat Race manages to avoid sinking to the abysmal level of other ludicrous comedies like the Scary Movies, it is clearly a mindless film that does not quite manage to redeem itself by having at least one or two things in it that can be taken seriously enough for it to be funny. The movie is bad enough even without the appearance of Smash Mouth at the end of the film, who are playing a concert for the poor. The way that all of the contestants in the movie stumble on stage with their newfound wealth at the end of the flim (I typed that accidentally just now, but it strikes me as a better word ), ultimately deciding to donate it to the poor, is both insulting and disappointing. Sure, it would be a bad idea to make a movie that did nothing but promote greed, but all that time and effort by the characters as well as the audience is completely wasted (this is also one of the many things that ruined Titanic). It certainly is a good cause, but it is entirely uninteresting. You'd think that the virtually endless possibilities of the cinema would have inspired the film's writer (or writers, could there possibly have been more than one?) to come up with something more creative than this. In reality, donating to the poor, especially such a huge amount of money, is truly honorable and earns you a well-deserved interview and article in the newspaper. In the movies, it is a cheap way to get out of being accused of advertising greed, and winds up as little more than a boring end to a bad movie.