Rat Race

2001  PG-13  COMEDY  1h 52min

CAST— Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Lovitz, Rowan Atkinson, Cuba Gooding, Jr., John Cleese, Kathy Najimy, Breckin Meyer, Amy Smart, Seth Green, Vince Vieluf, Lanai Chapman, Paul Rodriguez, Wayne Knight, Dave Thomas, Kathy Bates, Dean Cain

MUSIC— John Powell  DIRECTOR— Jerry Zucker

     Lame-brained, often lowbrow series of misadventures of an all-star cast in a somewhat shoddy comedy. John Cleese plays the owner of a Las Vegas casino who offers six gamblers a once in a lifetime opportunity: whoever opens a certain locker in Silver City, New Mexico first walks away with $2,000,000. From here on it’s a scramble to see who it’s gonna be; will it be the uptight family man; the estranged mother and daughter; the con-artist brothers; the ex-referee; the narcoleptic tourist; the nervous attorney and his newly acquired love interest? The writers really went all out in determining which stereotypes to portray, but you have to give the editors credit for chopping this hodgepodge apart and putting it back together again. Harkens back to It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) but isn’t half as fun. The best line isn’t even spoken: “You… should… have… bought… a… squirrel!”

OUR RATING— **