Rat Race
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 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.
Title: Rat Race
Release Date: 2001
Genres: Adventure, Comedy
- Directors: Zucker, Jerry
- Actors:
- Cleese, John
- Atkinson, Rowan
- Smart, Amy
- Meyer, Breckin as Nick Schaffer
- Bergere, Jenica as Hotel Clerk
- Gooding Jr., Cuba as Owen Templeton
- Diamond, Carrie as Casino Bartender
- Haase, Douglas as Guy at Bar
- Myers, Chris as Fox Sportscaster
- Frazier, Kevin as Fox Sportscaster
- Green, Seth as Duane Cody
- Vieluf, Vince as Blaine Cody
- Allred, Gloria as Herself
- Lee, Renée as Witness in Crowd
- Harney, Corinna as Cocktail Waitress
- Walsh, Jane C. as Cocktail Waitress
- Goldberg, Whoopi as Vera Baker
- Chapman, Lanei as Merrill Jennings (Baker)