Rat Race (film)

Rat Race is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Jerry Zucker. Inspired by Stanley Kramer's 1963 classic It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the film features an ensemble cast consisting of Rowan Atkinson, Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jon Lovitz, Kathy Najimy, Lanai Chapman, Breckin Meyer, Amy Smart, Seth Green, Vince Vieluf, Wayne Knight, John Cleese and Dave Thomas. The film centers on six teams of people who are given the task of racing 563 miles from a Las Vegas casino to a Silver City, New Mexico train station where a storage locker contains a duffel bag filled with $2 million; the first person to reach the locker wins and gets to keep the money.

Produced by Fireworks Pictures, Alphaville Films and Zucker's Zucker Productions, the film was released theatrically by Paramount Pictures on August 17, 2001 in the United States and Canada. It received mixed reviews from critics but was a box office success, having grossed $85.5 million worldwide against a $48 million budget.

Plot
Eccentric tycoon Donald Sinclair devises a game to entertain the high rollers who visit his Las Vegas casino. He arranges for six competitors to race the 563 miles to Silver City, New Mexico, where the winner's prize of $2 million has been placed in a luggage locker. Unbeknownst to them, Sinclair's wealthy patrons place bets on who will win.

The racers consist of scheming siblings Duane and Blaine Cody, highly-strung businesswoman Merrill Jennings and her mother Vera, disgraced football referee Owen Templeton, the Pear family led by the opportunistic Randy Pear, narcoleptic Italian tourist Enrico Pollini, and no-nonsense attorney Nick Schaffer. They initially agree not to play Sinclair's game, but greed takes over as they wait to start to race.

Duane and Blaine destroy the airport radar, grounding everybody else. They decide to better their chances by splitting up. They have a locksmith create a duplicate key, but he overhears their plan and absconds with the key in a hot air balloon. The brothers catch him and leave him and a stray cow hanging from the balloon's anchor rope. Soon, the brothers lose control of their car and become flattened in a monster truck rally. They then steal the monster truck and drive it to Silver City.

Merrill and Vera are given malicious road directions and crash their car. They steal a rocket car until it runs out of fuel. The two stumble onto a bus full of mental patients headed for Silver City.

Owen is kicked out of a taxi in the middle of the desert without his pants and shoes as the driver's revenge for making a bad call at a football game. At a gas station he hijacks a bus full of Lucille Ball cosplayers as well as a bus drivers uniform. He crashes the bus after hitting the cow dangling from the hot air balloon, then has an emotional breakdown and reveals that he is not the bus driver, resulting in the enraged women chasing him. Owen escapes and rides a stolen horse to Silver City.

Randy and his family mistakenly visit a Klaus Barbie museum where they steal Adolf Hitler's staff car after the Cody brothers sabotage their vehicle. When his family insists on ending the trip, Randy drugs them with sleeping pills and bundles them into a semi-truck.

Nick chooses not to participate but changes his mind when he meets Tracy Faucet, a pilot, who gives him a lift in her helicopter. Tracy uses her helicopter to attack her cheating boyfriend, then she and Nick hijack the boyfriend's truck and drive to Silver City, forming a romantic relationship in the process.

Enrico falls asleep at the start and wakes up hours later. He receives a ride from Zack, an ambulance driver delivering a transplant heart. Enrico inadvertently throws the heart out of the van whereupon it is stolen by a dog, which is then electrocuted by an electric fence. Zack decides to kill Enrico to replace the heart. Enrico escapes by boarding a passing train to Silver City station, where he is the first to reach the locker, only to fall asleep while unlocking it.

The racers reunite in Silver City and fight to open the locker only to find it empty. Outside, they find Sinclair's assistant Grisham and Vicki, a call girl he hired, making off with the money. The locksmith ties the money to the balloon and the racers chase the balloon to a Smash Mouth charity concert. The band and crowd mistake the money for a donation. The group tries to explain that they don't want to donate the money, but once they see the charitable good spirit engendered they are persuaded to accept. Nick then horrifies Sinclair and his patrons by announcing that Sinclair and the gamblers will match the money raised. The film ends with the racers dancing to "All Star" while Sinclair cries, distraught over losing at least 19 million dollars.

Cast

 * Main


 * Breckin Meyer as Nick Schaffer, a straight-laced young attorney
 * Amy Smart as Tracy Faucet, a competent helicopter pilot with rage issues and Nick's love interest
 * Cuba Gooding Jr. as Owen Templeton, a disgraced football referee now infamous for a bad call
 * Seth Green as Duane Cody, a ne'er-do-well looking to make a buck on insurance scams
 * Vince Vieluf as Blaine Cody, Duane's unintelligible-speaking brother
 * Whoopi Goldberg as Vera Baker, Merrill's doting and superstitious mother
 * Lanai Chapman as Merrill Jennings, a high-strung businesswoman with some rage issues
 * Jon Lovitz as Randy Pear, a sneaky, irresponsible and recklessly opportunist tourist with an imbecilic yet mischievous expression and nature
 * Kathy Najimy as Bev Pear, Randy's wife
 * Brody Smith as Jason Pear, Randy and Bev's eldest son
 * Jillian Marie Hubert as Kimberly Pear, Randy and Bev's younger daughter
 * Rowan Atkinson as Enrico Pollini, a simple-minded narcoleptic Italian tourist
 * John Cleese as Donald P. Sinclair, an eccentric Las Vegas billionaire and gambling mastermind
 * Dave Thomas as Harold Grisham, Sinclair's well-trodden assistant
 * Wayne Knight as Zack Mallozzi, a medical supply driver with a habit of showing off his deliveries


 * Minor


 * Silas Weir Mitchell as Lloyd, a hardware store owner and locksmith
 * Paul Rodriguez as Gus, a taxi driver with a mischievous expression and nature
 * Dean Cain as Shawn Kent, Tracy's ex-boyfriend
 * Brandy Ledford as Vicki, a call girl
 * Colleen Camp as Rainbow House Nurse
 * Ben Hartnell as a Crab
 * Deborah Theaker as one of the Lucy Ball cosplayers
 * Charlotte Zucker as an elderly Lucy Ball cosplayer
 * Rance Howard as Feed the Earth Spokesman
 * Gloria Allred as herself
 * Smash Mouth as themselves
 * Kathy Bates (uncredited) as a fervent but insidious squirrel seller
 * Diamond Dallas and Kimberly Page (deleted scenes) as themselves

Development
Rat Race was initially written by Darryl Quarles as a spec script. By February 1999, the script had been sold to Hollywood Pictures and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. In August 1999, Jerry Zucker was in negotiations to direct the film for Paramount Pictures from a screenplay written by Andy Breckman that would be set in Las Vegas, Nevada and in New Mexico.

Paramount hoped to begin production of the film in the end of 1999 or the beginning of 2000. Jerry and Janet Zucker were to produce the film alongside Sean Daniel, while Daniel's partner in Alphaville Films, James Jacks, would serve as executive producer. The filmmakers initially considered having the film's characters race from Las Vegas, Nevada to Las Vegas, New Mexico, but the idea was rejected following concerns that it might confuse viewers.

In January 2000, Las Vegas, Nevada was confirmed as a filming location for Rat Race. Location scouting in southern Nevada was scheduled for May 2000, while filming in the area was delayed until fall 2000, to avoid shooting the film in one hundred degree weather. Breckin Meyer and Amy Smart were cast in the film in June 2000. Dean Cain was also among the actors to join the cast. Actor John Cleese praised the script as one of only two scripts during his career that he enjoyed: "It's so unusual to get a top-class script. Twice in my life I've had the experience of reading a script and simply saying, 'I'm going to do this.'"

Filming
Filming began in the Canadian city of Calgary in August 2000. Filming took place primarily along Calgary's highways, which stood in as highways that the characters travel on in Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Desert scenes were shot in the Canadian town of Drumheller. Second unit filming began in Las Vegas on August 7, 2000, with scenes primarily involving Cuba Gooding Jr. Scheduled filming locations included the Las Vegas Strip, Tropicana Avenue (east of the Las Vegas Strip), McCarran International Airport, and Nevada State Route 159. Other scheduled filming locations in Nevada included Goodsprings and Sandy Valley.

Scenes involving Gooding and the group of Lucy impersonators were shot in the Canadian Rockies. Jerry Zucker, who had a tradition of including his mother Charlotte Zucker in each of his films beginning with Airplane!, had her portray one of the Lucy impersonators. Jerry Zucker said, "It's like the Alfred Hitchcock signature. Instead of me, it's mom." Filming also took place at Calgary's former Currie Barracks military base, which had been converted to accommodate film and television productions.

Sound stages were constructed inside two aircraft hangars at the base to be used for many of the film's interior scenes, including the Venetian's hotel rooms and conference room. Driving scenes, using green screens and rear projection effects, were also shot inside the hangars. The scene with the coin toss by Owen Templeton was filmed at Calgary's McMahon Stadium.

Filming returned to Las Vegas for a nine-day period beginning on September 20, 2000, with the first three days spent at the McCarran International Airport, before moving to the Venetian resort on the Las Vegas Strip for a six-day shoot. Venetian officials negotiated with Paramount for six months to use the resort in the film. Scenes were shot throughout the Venetian, with the exception of its hotel rooms. Venetian scenes included the casino, lobby, and the entrance to its valet parking garage, as well as exterior shots of the resort. Approximately 1,000 background extras were needed during the second Las Vegas shoot. On September 25, 2000, second unit filming took place along Nevada State Route 161, leading to Goodsprings.

Filming in Las Vegas concluded on September 29, 2000, and production moved to Ely, Nevada, which stood in as Silver City, New Mexico. Ely's Nevada Northern Railway Museum stood in as the Silver City train station. According to the Nevada Film Office, the filmmakers "fell in love" with the museum after being shown pictures of it. As a result, the initial two day shoot in Ely was extended to six days. Ely's western entrance, accessed from U.S. Route 50, was used as the entrance to Silver City.

After concluding in Ely, production crews relocated to southern California for the final six weeks of filming, mainly for exterior scenes. California filming primarily occurred in Antelope Valley, Palmdale, Acton, Santa Clarita, and Newhall. Rosamond, California was also a primary location, with filming occurring during a three-week period in October 2000. Smart's helicopter scenes were filmed at 3118 Carnation Street in Rosamond. Additional filming in California occurred at Big Sky Ranch and El Mirage Lake.

Sinclair and the gamblers' eccentric habits are further exaggerated in deleted scenes, where they partake in many more ridiculous bets, including playing Monopoly with real money. In another scene, a high roller pretends to find what they are doing immoral. Professional wrestler Diamond Dallas Page and his wife, Kimberly, had a cameo that was cut when test audiences failed to give his appearance any reaction. The scene is available on the DVD release.

Box office
Rat Race was released in both the United States and Canada on August 17, 2001 and grossed USD$11,662,094 in its opening weekend at the North American box office, ranking third behind American Pie 2 and Rush Hour 2. The film ultimately grossed $56.6 million domestically and $28.8 million overseas for a worldwide total of approximately $85.5 million based on a budget of an estimated $48 million, making it commercially successful. The film was released in the United Kingdom on January 11, 2002 and opened also at number three behind the non-comedic The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. For the next two weekends, the film regained the spot, before moving down one place and then four places down before finally ending up on No. 10 on February 10, 2002.

Critical response
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 44% "Rotten" rating based on 128 reviews with an average rating of 4.94/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Rat Race moves from one sight gag to another, but only a handful of them are genuinely funny." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 52 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.