RAT RACE NOW AVAILABLE

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HERE IS THE SUMMARY FOR THE MOVIE RAT RACE FROM IMDB

Donald P. Sinclair (Cleese) has placed six separate gold coins in different slot machines in his casino. The lucky six who find these coins discover an opportunity of a lifetime. The chance to own $2 million. Locked up in a locker in New Mexico, these six contestants must now race each other, to be the first to the cash. There are no rules in place and everything that could possibly happen, does. Whilst, behind the scenes, Sinclair's associates are placing their bets. Written by Film_Fan

A group of billionaires led by a Las Vegas casino owner (John Cleese) search for things to bet on. They decide to pull a group of six strangers together to race from Vegas to Silver City, New Mexico to retrieve $2 million hidden in a locker. First one there gets all of the money. The first team are two addled brothers (Seth Green and Vince Vieluf, who talks indecipherably because of a newly pierced tongue). When they cannot catch a plane, they plot to destroy an airport control tower in a very funny sequence. Their antics carry them into a hot air balloon chase that catches a cow with a dangling rope and into a monster truck competition. The second team is an estranged mother (Whoopi Goldberg) reunited with her daughter (Lanai Chapman), who is struggling to start a business. They face an insane squirrel-selling woman (Kathy Bates) and steal a rocket car scheduled for a land speed record attempt. A hated NFL referee (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) 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 Jewish family man (Jon Lovitz) on a family vacation joins the race without telling his wife (Kathy Najimy) why they are rushing across the country. When his daughter insists on stopping at a Barbie museum, it is without realization that it is the Klaus Barbie Nazi Museum. The escape from that location involves the theft of Hitler's personal touring car and culminates with Lovitz having his tongue burned and accidentally crashing into a WWII Veteran's convention. A narcoleptic Italian (Rowan Atkinson in his best Mr. Bean-like manner) gets a ride with an ambulance driver (Wayne Knight), who is carting a human heart for a transplant. Through various ineptitude, the heart ends up flying out of the truck's window and the two have to recover it from a playful dog. The final race member (Breckin Meyer) is a straight-laced future lawyer who at first declines to participate in the race, but re-thinks his position after he meets a smart, beautiful woman (Amy Smart) who is flying a helicopter to New Mexico. He quickly finds out that she is unbalanced after she flies over her boy friend's house and starts an attack on the boy friend when she sees him in the pool with an ex-girl friend. An air pursuit results in the crash of the helicopter. Dave Thomas also appears as Cleese's humorless attorney. Written by John Sacksteder {jsackste@bellsouth.net}

Donald Sinclair (John Cleese) owns the biggest, snazziest, flashiest, high rolling-est casino in Las Vegas. And to entertain some of his wealthiest patrons, he's staged the most original high stakes game that Sin City has ever seen! The contestants? Six teams. The jackpot? Two million dollars stuffed in a locker hundreds of miles away. The odds of winning? One in six. The rules? Well there's only one--get there first! What the racers don't know is that the tycoon and his rich buddies are betting on the outcome and are tracking every move the teams make. It's only a matter of time before they figure out who really stands to win the most before switching course to look for a different kind of pay-off. Written by Sujit R. Varma

A betting-obsessed casino mogul and his group of just as bad billionaire associates, sets up a new kind of gamble in a race for $2 million hidden away in a locker. They enlist the aid of eight people who happen to be residing in his casino at once. A clean cut lawyer, a disgraced NFL referee, two inept brothers, a determined mother and daughter, a narcoleptic Italian immigrant, and a desperate father embark on a series of misadventures to obtain the money regardless of what it takes. Written by MonkeyKingMA

HERE IS A REVIEW FOR THE MOVIE RAT RACE FROM DVDTALK

The Movie: One of the few bright spots of the late Summer season, "Rat Race" brings back "Airplane" director Jerry Zucker in fine form. It's another one of the usual Zucker efforts - throw everything at the audience and see what sticks - and actually, most of it works well. Sort of a remake of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", the film starts off bringing all of the main characters in front of millionaire casino owner Donald Sinclair (John Cleese). After joking with them about being selected for being saved from the end of the world, he lets them in on the real deal: there's two million dollars in the locker of a train station in New Mexico; the first one there gets the cash - and, "there are no rules". A few of the players pair off into teams, while others prefer to go their own way: Duane and Blaine Cody (Seth Green and Vince Vieluf), Vera and Merrill (Whoopi Goldberg and Lanei Chapman), Nick and Tracy (Breckin Meyer and Amy Smart), Randy Pear (Jon Lovitz) and his family, Owen Templeton (Cuba Gooding Jr.), Enrico (Rowan Atkinson). The group heads off towards their destination by train, helicopter, bus, feet and balloon. I will admit that it didn't look good; the trailers showed little promise, but the movie actually comes up with some inspired comedic moments, especially revolving around Lovitz and family. One of the film's funniest running jokes focuses not on the racers, but those betting on them. We're shown that billionaires from around the world were brought together to bet on the winner. Along the way, the wealthy and bored individuals find many other things to bet on, including the first one of them to have air sickness. The film doesn't start off particularly well; the tone seems a little off and things aren't moving along very well. About 15 minutes in, I was already looking at my watch, which was not a particularly good sign. Yet, when the race finally begins, the movie really hits an impressive stride. Although not completely consistent, the movie got funnier and funnier as it went along. The performers were not always that amusing, though - Goldberg and Chapman are really hardly given much to do, while Atkinson's bits were not all that funny. Meyer and Smart (who were both in "Road Trip") have good chemistry again here and Cleese, Lovitz and Green are quite entertaining. The only piece of the film that doesn't quite come together is the ending; it's warm-hearted, but goes on too long and provides yet another appearance by rock band Smash Mouth, who's been on the soundtrack for far too many films at this point. Still, "Rat Race" works far better than it should have for the majority of the running time, a fun couple of hours of comedic chaos that generated some solid laughs. The DVD VIDEO: "Rat Race" is presented by Paramount in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. The presentation is quite good and would skip over into great if it wasn't for one considerable flaw. Sharpness and detail are strong, though - the picture appeared consistently well-defined and crisp, delivering Thomas Ackerman's widescreen photography quite well.

Everything would be terrific if it wasn't for one flaw - a mild amount of edge enhancement is visible rather frequently, which was dissapointing, considering the picture quality was fine otherwise. Print flaws were nearly absent, as only one or two minor specks were visible. Pixelation was also nowhere to be found. Colors remained bright, strong and nicely saturated throughout, with no smearing or other problems. While not perfect, this is still a very good effort.


SOUND: "Rat Race" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. The comedy doesn't exceed expectations when it comes to sound use - the audio really stays almost completely in the front three speakers. A few sequences of more intense action do have some sound effects distributed to the surrounds, but I doubt that many will find these instances that noticable. If anything, the best element of the audio was the appropriately madcap score, which sounded absolutely fantastic and really added to the comedy.

MENUS: Paramount has done a very nice job with the menus, as the main menu shows the characters, using the same animation as the opening credits.

EXTRAS: Andy & Jerry Interview: This is a short interview with director Jerry Zucker and writer Andy Breckman. The two chat about the making of the feature, talking about elements such as working with the actors (and each other), as well as how to make the jokes transition well from script-to-screen. Deleted Scenes: Rightly deleted scenes, actually. There are six included, each with short introductions by Jerry Zucker. One scene with the gamblers playing monopoly for real money got a laugh, but I didn't find the other five very funny. Jerry and Andy Call The Actors: Originally, director Zucker and writer Breckman were going to record a full-length commentary track for the movie itself. Apparently bored with their discussion (which I find unfortunate, given that I thought Zucker's past commentaries were hilarious) and decided to simply record themselves calling the actors instead. This feature is included in the supplemental section - a pair of menus with pictures of the actors pop up, then clicking on a picture plays the audio-only conversation. The conversations (with all the leads) are quite lengthy altogether, so it's curious that these tracks weren't edited together into an audio track that could play along with the film. As for the conversations themselves, I didn't find much to them - there's a lot of small talk to get through to actually get to any interesting stories about the film. Making of "Rat Race": This is a 22-minute "making of" featurette, whose only interesting feature is the occasional gem in the interviews. Other than that, this is stroll down the usual, as the featurette mainly focuses on promoting the story and characters. Gag Reel: This is a 4 minute reel of outtakes - while not the funniest outtakes reel that I've ever seen, there are some extremely funny moments contained within - especially a scene where Lovitz tries to get Gooding, Jr. to say one of his more famous lines. Giggles: A lengthy clip showing two actors from the film suffering from a laughing spell. Also: The trailer. Final Thoughts: "Rat Race" isn't fantastic, but it's occasionally very funny and often works considerably better than it should have, thanks to Zucker and a talented cast. Paramount's DVD offers good audio/video quality and a nice batch of supplements. Recommended.

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