Raising Arizona (1987)
Grade: 84
There is a world out there where everyone is equally stupid, weird and funny. And they don't even know it. That world can be found in "Raising Arizona", an inspired comedy with a feel that has never been successfully imitated.
Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter are a husband and wife, ex-con and ex-cop team that have one thing missing from their lives: she cannot have children. With Cage's criminal record, adoption is impossible. Reading about a furniture magnate's wife delivering quintuplets, the young couple kidnaps one of the kids.
The plot becomes ever more complex and crazy as Cage loses his job, and returns to robbing convenience stores. John Goodman and William Forsythe show up as stupid prison escapees who learn the secret behind the baby's sudden arrival.
Much of the humor comes from Cage's deadpan expressions. Hunter is adorable as Cage's excitable wife, while Goodman gets more good lines than he did on the final two seasons of "Roseanne".
Bratty kids alert! Cage's boss pays him a visit, bringing his pre-adolescent kids, who are among the biggest brats in celluloid history. It doesn't help that father actually encourages them. Are they too young for military school?
You know that "Raising Arizona" must be a great comedy if it can find a good role for Randall 'Tex' Cobb, former Larry Holmes punching bag. Cobb was born to play the Lone Motorcyclist of the Apocalypse, who wears a tattoo that states "Mama Didn't Love Me".
Web surfing reveals that Roger Ebert only gave this film one-and-a-half stars. Well, I'm sure that some people laugh at my grades too!
kollers@mpsi.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews