Rat Race

2001 Comedy

A very loose remake of the classic multi-star comedy It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), this madcap comedy is directed by Jerry Zucker, one third of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedy team and director of Ghost (1990). John Cleese stars as an eccentric casino owner who devises a contest pitting six teams against each other in a race to claim two million dollars from a locker in New Mexico. The competitors are Owen (Cuba Gooding Jr., who ends up driving a bus full of Lucille Ball imitators, a foreigner (Rowan Atkinson) who hitches a ride in an organ donor vehicle, and a recently reunited mother and daughter (Whoopi Goldberg and Lanei Chapman) who anger a "squirrel lady" (Kathy Bates) -- much to their regret. There are also two con artist brothers (Seth Green and Vince Vieluf), the upright Nick (Breckin Meyer), who gets a lift from cute but psychotic pilot Tracy (Amy Smart), and the eccentric Pear family, headed up by Jon Lovitz. Rat Race also stars Dave Thomas, Kathy Najimy, Wayne Knight, Dean Cain, and Paul Rodriguez. more..

Director: Jerry Zucker

Starring: John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Breckin Meyer, Jon Lovitz, Cuba Gooding Jr.

 31 Reviews  1 Awards

Reviews

  • The funniest film to come along since "South Park," and one that succeeds in a more difficult and satisfying way.

    Mick LaSalle - The San Francisco Chronicle

    27 April 2013

  • The easygoing silliness with which this late-summer movie surprise scuttles from mayhem to mayhem and the verve with which the cast throws itself into the fray are so cheering and liberating.

    Lisa Schwarzbaum - Entertainment Weekly

    27 April 2013

  • The movie is so cheerfully, furiously relentless, its contagious silliness wears you down.

    Rene Rodriguez - Miami Herald

    27 April 2013

  • Atkinson, somehow managing to be simultaneously delicate and broad, can do things with his face that shouldn't be legal. His delighted and delightful Mr. Pollini is a little taste of comic genius.

    Kenneth Turan - Los Angeles Times

    27 April 2013

  • A strong ending might have obscured the mediocrity in the writing, or at least diverted us, but the ending is sentimental where it needed to be hard-edged and comically merciless. For a film about people hurtling forward, Rat Race is pretty pedestrian.

    Jay Carr - The Boston Globe

    27 April 2013

Awards

  • Best Aerial Work

    World Stunt Awards (2002)

     

Lists

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