Rat Race
A Las Vegas casino magnate, determined to find a new avenue for wagering, sets up a race for money.
- Director: Jerry Zucker
- Genre:Adventure / Comedy
- Runtime:112 minutes
Cast
Breckin Meyer : Nick Schaffer
Jenica Bergere : Hotel Clerk
Cuba Gooding Jr.: Owen Templeton
Carrie Diamond : Casino Bartender
Douglas Haase : Guy at Bar
Donald Sinclair (John Cleese), the eccentric billionaire owner of The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, devises a new game to entertain the wealthy gamblers that visit his hotel. Six special tokens are placed in the casino’s slot machines, and the winners of them are gathered together and told that two million dollars in cash are hidden in a duffel bag in a train station locker in Silver City, New Mexico. They are told it’s a no-holds-barred race to get there first and claim the money. Each winner is given a key that will open the locker and they are sent on their way. Sinclair’s patrons place bets on who will win the race.
The players alter their modes of transport over the course of the film and encounter different problems along the way. Merill Jennings and her estranged mother Vera Baker meet a squirrel owner who sends them careening down a pit when they refuse to buy a squirrel. They steal a rocket car and race across the desert until the car runs out of fuel. The women stumble into a bus of “Crazy Ladies” until they reach Silver City, choking the bus’ leader until they get off. Blaine and Duane Cody sabotage an airport radar, and then decide to make a copy of their key to double their chances of winning. However, a locksmith overhears their conversation and the steals the key for himself. The brothers chase him as he tries to escape in a hot air balloon, but they get the key back and leave the locksmith and a cow to float away dangling from the balloon. They crash into a monster truck rally and steal a vehicle after being distracted by an attractive woman with many piercings.
Owen Templeton, an ashamed football referee is left stranded in the desert by a vengeful taxi driver after he lost a bet thanks to Owen’s mishap involving a coin toss at the start of a football match. Owen finds a bus full of women going to an I Love Lucy convention, but the bus crashes thanks to an incident involving the cow stuck on the balloon, and Owen reveals he is not a bus driver before fleeing from the women, using a horse to reach Silver City. The Pear Family, consisting of Randy, his wife Bev, and their children, visit a “Barbie Museum” on the way, actually dedicated to Nazi Klaus Barbie. Their car is damaged by the Codys, so they steal Adolf Hitler’s Mercedes-Benz car. Randy insults a group of female bikers, who attack the car and send it crashing into a rally of World War II veterans. Resembling Hitler due to a makeup smudge on his face- as well as having briefly had a cigarette lighter shoved down his throat-, Randy wanders to a podium and shouts out garbled English resembling German at the veterans and insults them further by flipping them off whilst trying to explain what happened. He later drugs his family and loads them into a truck to continue the journey. Read more
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