Rat Race (film)
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Rat Race is a 2001 comedy film (not to be confused with The Rat Race of 1960) directed by Jerry Zucker. It is an updated retelling of the 1963 film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The story is about six teams of people given a task of racing from a Las Vegas casino to a train station in New Mexico, where a storage locker contains a large amount of money; the first team to reach the locker wins.
Contents
Plot
Donald Sinclair, the multi-millionare owner of a hotel in Las Vegas (played by John Cleese) devises a new game to entertain his wealthy patrons. Six special tokens are placed in the slot machines, and the winners of the tokens are gathered together and told that $2,000,000.00 in U.S. cash are hidden in a locker in a train station in Silver City, New Mexico. They are told they are in a race to get there first and claim the money. Each winner is given a key that will open the locker and they are sent on their way. Meanwhile, Sinclair's patrons place bets on who will end up with the money.The film follows the contestants and the gamblers as they try to make their way to the locker. In the end, the money goes to charity, and the gamblers are forced to match all money raised at a charity concert.
Major Characters
The Codys
The two inept Cody brothers, Duane (Seth Green) and Blaune (Vince Vieluf), are the first characters to find a token. Duane is the "sensible" one, while Blaune mumbles incoherently due to his swollen and badly infected tongue — the result of a botched self-piercing. They are at the casino to attempt to get rich by faking an injury and suing the casino. Instead they end up racing for $2,000,000.00. They decide to split up and go separately to increase their chances of winning, so they try to get a second key made. They are not very bright, however, and the keymaker rips them off giving them two unmade keys while keeping the real one (they indiscreetly discussed their plan within earshot of the keymaker).Vera and Merrill
The second team is a mother-daughter team. Vera Baker (Whoopi Goldberg) went to the casino to meet her adult daughter, Merrill Jennings, (Lanai Chapman). Vera had not seen Merrill since she was put up for adoption as a baby, and despite tentative familial feelings they are essentially strangers.Templeton
The much-hated NFL referee, Owen Templeton (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), is accused of making the "biggest bonehead call in the history of football". He is stranded in the desert by an irate cabbie (Paul Rodriguez) and hijacks a busload of Lucille Ball look-alikes on the way to a convention.The Pears
Randy Pear (Jon Lovitz), works at Home Depot. He is on a family vacation and, desperate to get rich so he doesn't have to work at Home Depot any more, he joins the race without telling his wife (Kathy Najimy) why they are rushing across the country. He instead informs her that he has a job interview.Pollini
The narcoleptic Italian tourist Enrico Pollini (Rowan Atkinson in his best Mr. Bean manner) falls asleep for a few hours in the hotel lobby. When he wakes up, he gets a ride with an ambulance driver (Wayne Knight), who is carting a human heart for a transplant.Schaffer
The final race member, Nick Schaffer (Breckin Meyer), is a straight-laced lawyer who at first declines to participate in the race, but re-thinks his position after he meets a smart, beautiful woman, Tracy Faucet (Amy Smart), who is flying a helicopter to New Mexico.Trivia
- While waiting for the winner, Sinclair's friends pass the time by making various different types of bets, such as which chocolate Sinclair's assistant will randomly choose, which hotel maid can hold onto the curtains longest without falling, and how much money will a prostitute ask to please a man with a very outrageous fetish. The prostitute scene is important later in the plot.
- The climactic railroad station scenes for Silver City, New Mexico were filmed at the restored train station at East Ely, Nevada, a popular tourist destination.
- Donald Sinclair is the name of a deceased hotel owner from Torquay, England. Cleese has stated that Sinclair was the inspiration for the character of Basil Fawlty in Cleese's Fawlty Towers.
- The film grossed a fair $55.8 million at the US box office.
External link
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