Hey there boys and girls!
Back again with another series of films to bash or bask in and one film
truly come to mind in 1986. With all the
Brat Pack associated, touchy feely films of this time showing us teenage to mid
20’s angst, a movie by Airplanes’ Jim Abrahams stood out. With an amazing collective cast, wild story
arcs and in general bizarre looks into the varied human psyche; this would also
be Bill Pullman’s first feature length movie.
So drop your tuckus in that chair, have some bon bons and maybe a
refreshing New Coke. This is Ruthless
People.
Spoilers strike without
provocation….
Director Jim Abrahams
(Police
Squad, Airplane, Top Secret, Hot Shots and Jane Austen’s Mafia) and
writer Dale Launer (Blind
Date, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, My Cousin Vinny and Love Potion No. 9)
team up to modernize short story novelist’s O’ Henry’s “The Ransom of the Red
Chief” into a warped, fun romantic comedy drama.
The story is thus: Sam Stone (Danny DeVito of Taxi, Romancing
the Stone, Head Office, Batman Returns, Tin Men, Other People’s Money and L.A.
Confidential) is a ruthless slimeball clothing manufacturer whose
business is afloat in a soft market of clothing design is hell bent to do in
his heiress wife Barbara (Bette Midler of The Thorn, Divine Madness,
Bette Midler: Art or Bust, Outrageous Fortune, Beaches, Stella, For The Boys,
Get Shorty, The First Wives Club and What Women Want) and claim the wealth
entitled to his wife as the grieving husband.
Sam schemes, plots and preps for the event all the while he relays his
plans to his buxom mistress Carol (Anita Morris of Maria’s Lovers, A
Masterpiece of Murder, Blue City, 18 Again! and Bloodhounds of Broadway)
fooling around with her in her bed.
Unbeknownst to Sam, Carol and her bumbling, inept boyfriend Earl (Bill
Pullman of Spaceballs, The Serpent and the Rainbow, The Accidental Tourist,
Going Under, Independence Day, Lake Placid) plan to tape the murder and
blackmail Sam and then it is off to Haiti.
Tahiti Carol corrects. Oh..I knew
that.
Fate plays as strange hand as neither party gets what they
want when Sam gets a call from a unanimous person who claims to have kidnapped
Barbara and for the sum of 500,000 US he can have her back. No cops’ involvement, he has a deadline and
if all demands are not met Sam will find his wife in the morgue.
Joy and rapture fills Sam’s heart that soon his wife will be
out of the picture and his hands will be clean of it all. Barbara’s evil abductors are two middle class
people struggling to make ends meet after Sam had screwed them on a deal
prior. Ken Kesseler (Judge
Reinhold of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Gremlins, Beverly Hills Cop, Beverly
Hills Cop II, Zandalee, and Baby on Board) is a stereo salesman and his
wife Sandy (Helen Slater of Supergirl, The Secret of My Succe$s, City Slickers, The
Steal, and No Way Back) is a gifted designer whose creations Sam nicked
given they had no proper license to them and is using them as his own. These are the type of people that cannot
cheat on their taxes, have to pay a parking ticket and simply could not conceive
the notion of wrong doing and yet arrive at this slippery slope.
Here are a few quick notes on the film. The style of cinematography is phenomenal as
it is director Jan de Bont (Die Hard, Black Rain, Lethal Weapon 3, The Hunt for Red October) for car chase scenes and fight scenes, the lighting
is exquisite and double entendre is the name of the dialogue. The humor can be a bit low brow but it is
displayed well in the disgust of the cops, the endless griping of Sam and the easy
corruption of innocence. To this day I
cannot say who had the best lines.
Between DeVito’s rants, Midler’s foul comments and Reinhold just being
decent, it is a gem I would highly recommend.
Pullman is an absolute doofus/gigolo and his scenes are to die for.
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