Hannibal (2001)

"People will say we're in love", quoth Dr Lecter to Starling. Well, people did say a lot in response to Hannibal, such as how full of shit author Thomas Harris was when he released a highly anticipated follow-up to The Silence of the Lambs, the film adaptation of which had already become considered a classic of cinema. For Starling and Lecter to end up as lovers and companions, free in the world, was just too implausible and tone deaf for most to swallow. I confess that during my adolescent infatuation with the Starling and Lecter pairing, I revelled in this fan-fic of an ending. It made perfect sense to me, and satisfied the sexual chemistry that had been brewing, in my view, for years between the characters. I still somewhat stand by this, but it really does read like the ending was drawn from a Reader's Wives contest or something.

When the third book in the Lecter series, simply titled Hannibal, was announced for cinematic adaptation, some speculated that parts of the novel were simply too obscene to translate to screen.

Many a book far more extreme than Hannibal has been very faithfully adapted to the screen, but when the writers got their grubby mits on Harris' book, they decided to water it down in very derogatory and inexplicable ways. The novel it takes its material from is far from perfect, but a number of key characters and plot threads that were fairly central to the story never quite made the leap from page to screen. Hannibal is a pretty messy and poorly-coordinated movie, that is far too preoccupied with looking stylish.

Captured that Demme sophistication perfectly

Ridley Scott's professional name has gone through some transition over the years. Alien brought him acclaim as a sharp and effective visual storyteller; someone who could craft characters and cast actors who breathed life into them. His 21st century reputation precedes him as an overly-flashy, technologically-preoccupied director whose grasp on character and sensical plot seems to have slipped. Prometheus characterises this shift in artistic direction. Scott was about midway between these two extremes when he took the directorial helm of Hannibal, and what he turned out was a confused mish-mash of these styles. Far too much time is dedicated to visuals that do not suit the narrative, while the two or three main characters whose lives constitute the emotional weight of the story are diluted to mere silhouettes.

Hannibal, as written by Thomas Harris, is driven by its characters and their experiences. We are a decade on from Starling's ordeal with Buffalo Bill; she is physically and emotionally worn out by the significant influence that media and federal politics have had on the career she has strived so hard for; meanwhile Lecter, having escaped custody at the end of Silence of the Lambs, is living his best life in Italy, seamlessly carrying on as an art curator. His morbid curiosity with Starling is tickled by prominent media coverage of an assignment gone wrong that ended in the deaths of a perp and several of her colleagues, and he drip-drops back into her life via taunting correspondence. The third figure, this book's Buffalo Bill, if you like, is one Mason Verger, a meat empire heir with a history of paying big bucks to cover up his indiscretions, the most heinous being systematic child molestation. He is a hideously disfigured husk of a man whose life depends on a cornucopia of machinery and personal care, provided by his right-hand man Cordell. A sort of mutual, three-way pursuit ensues between Starling, Lecter and Verger. Starling wants to track down Lecter through Verger's inside knowledge and possibly revive her career; Verger wants to take the ultimate revenge on the psychologist who coerced him into cutting off his own face; Lecter... well, he wants to enjoy the finer things in life, and probably to use Starling's professional situation to gain her trust.

Ridley Scott presents Hannibal in Whoville

Now Scott is a filmmaker who knows his way around a good visual, and you'll recall that one of the many weapons in Silence of the Lambs' arsenal was the engrossing cinematography by Tak Fujimoto. The film guides audience sympathy and hints at motives and alliances, all through meticulous use of a camera: the close-up fourth-wall-breaking shots of Clarice as she talks to people, and the way she only makes eye contact with those she considers her intellectual equals. These include Lecter, Ardelia, Jack Crawford, and even Buffalo Bill himself. It was a prime example of how to tell a story visually. Hannibal requires this same attention to detail and emotional drive, but it just doesn't get it. This time John Mathieson is in charge of cinematography, and although he also worked for Scott on Gladiator the year before, it is rather telling that one of his later works was none other than Joel Schumacher's Phantom of the Opera - a movie notorious for visuals that get an A for effort but fall artistically flat. It's all, "oh, that looks pretty cool", and no, "that shot tells me a lot about X, Y or Z". It's not all about looking cool, kids.

I'm generally not one for pointing out dated film techniques, as I like to appreciate art for what it was in the context of its creation. However, Hannibal just screams early-'00s with its approach to visuals. Like the contemporaneous Lord of the Rings movies, the action will suddenly and randomly go into a slow frame rate for a few seconds. It puts silly images not just into the background, but into the foreground of its shots, such as a flock of pigeons forming Lecter's face on the cobblestones. It just throws any shit at the screen to see what sticks, like a first year film student project, as if the director is unsure of his style. And that's what's so damn frustrating. This is Ridley fucking Scott. He knows much better than this. But at least he could give his very talented actors some decent direction, right? RIGHT?

Ohhh, you know I also voiced Caitlyn Jenner?

For whatever reason, Jodie Foster does not reprise the role she gave so much heart to, and honestly, if I'd had my way, they would have just called off this stupid idea then and there. But hey, still gotta make those sweet sweet dollas, amirite? So Julianne Moore, of all people, gets called in to fill Foster's boots, and this movie is the reason I still have trouble liking Moore to this day. It's certainly true that Starling is not the same woman she was ten years before, and Moore is only doing what the writers and producers tell her to do, but her performance is so stilted and cold that I cannot even like Clarice Starling, or hope for her to succeed! Gary Oldman, who is hidden under layers of prosthetics and even had his name scratched from the credits and marketing, is somehow infinitely more engaging than Moore, and he is playing a fucking child molester! Why do I find myself more drawn to his silly games, than I do to Starling's very grave situation? 

Even the brilliant Hopkins, whose serious and studious approach to his work is well-known, has his cinematic prowess neutered by the ways the director and cinematographer decide to show him to us. No longer is he the predator, watching unblinking, as he eyes up his imminent prey; no longer is he such a powerful creature that he occupies every inch of the space he stands in. Now he is an average man, in civilian clothing, striding down the endless streets of Florence, standing lonely in the vast halls of old churches and apartment buildings. The way he disappeared into the crowd at the end of Silence, he continues almost the entirety of this film. Suddenly, he is a little blip on the landscape, despite being the namesake of the entire story. 

One movie that really does need a porn parody

Thomas Harris has always built this world with a good number of substantial characters. Silence gave us the likes of Crawford, Chilton, Ardelia, Catherine and Senator Martin, and they were all pertinent and realistic figures within the narrative. The book Hannibal brings back Crawford and Nurse Barney, and introduces Verger's sister Margot, whose ultimate murder of her twisted brother is entirely justified in the story as we read it. Her elimination from the movie causes a terrible domino effect: Barney is introduced, then has no further purpose to serve, so disappears; the bit part of Cordell is the one to finally kill Mason Verger, but he has so little personal or emotional stake in the situation, that it seems unreasonable, and unprecedented. Compare it, if you will, to Arya being the one to kill the Night King. We all thought the same thing: why her? Of all the conflicts she has endured, the Night King was the last person on her mind; meanwhile, a good half-dozen other characters' arcs seem to have led to this very moment, in which they will defeat the ultimate evil in a profound and meaningful way. So after being subject to nothing more sinister than Verger's minging face and snippy attitude, Cordell suddenly decides that he hates his boss so much that he will murder him. However, Margot has suffered years of sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of her brother, to the point that she is a bodybuilder in an effort to feel powerful, and has engaged with Starling and Barney extensively. She is square in the middle of this whole mess, and she has many good reasons to make her brother suffer. Why they decided to cut her character, I will never understand.

As a result of Harris' work, not Scott's, there are two lawmen who become supposedly central figures to this story. The first is the detestable Paul Krendler, who got a brief mention and sweeping mid-close-up in Silence, this time played by Ray Liotta. Now he is high-ranking, hates Starling for some reason, and has the mentality of a frat boy half-a-keg deep. He peeks at a pen-and-ink sketch of a nude woman like a naughty schoolboy, and concludes his officious diatribe at Starling with, "this town is full of cornpone country pussy." It's as if Scott woke up one morning and thought, "I forgot about the feminism!" and put this stupid line in off the cuff to emphasis what an asshole this character is, but once again, this is the regrettable work of Harris. Silence, both in film and literary forms, gave a subtle undertone of the sexism Starling faced in her job, but it never preached or made a point of it, like modern takes on the same story would. Basically, Krendler is a douchey man-child who wants to destroy Starling's career.

Then there is Detective Pazzi who - so underwritten that you need to have read the book to know - is a somewhat disgraced Florentine police officer, and he is looking to improve his financial and professional standing by capturing Lecter, who he has spotted working in a local museum, and is on the FBI's Most Wanted List alongside Osama Bin Laden (lol). Poor old Pazzi, however, is way out of his league, as most lawmen tend to be in these stories, and not only does he end up dead, but Lecter even serenades him with the embarrassing histories of his traitorous ancestors before disembowelling him. So... Senora Pazzi is one husband lighter, the unfortunate tourists in the square that night get a holiday to remember, and Lecter... escapes and somehow gets back to the US, completely undetected. Pazzi's sacrificial lamb-ing serves as the climax of the second act, but then once the third act gets going, you realise that he died for nothing. Hell, he lived for nothing. His influence on the story is negligible. Despite his calls to an official FBI phone line, and Starling's explicit warning to him not to pursue Lecter, nobody goes looking for him, or wonders what the hell happened to that overconfident married Italian dude that just disappeared. Our time is all but wasted on this whole saga, and when we get back to the US, there is no trace of Pazzi at all. Just forgeddabowdim. 

One of the defining characteristics of Silence of the Lambs is how neatly, how perfectly, everything came together. No loose end left, no stone unturned. Hannibal is such a jumbled mess that asks questions and doesn't answer them. And as much as I dislike the visual style, general direction and overall tone of this movie, much blame is to be attributed to Harris, or moreover, the writers who decided that his way was the best. It is a piss-poor follow-up to its impeccable predecessor, and such bad form on behalf of everyone involved. It's like when the problem kids at the grammar school get lectured by their form tutor about how they are letting themselves down: it's embarrassing, but entirely true.

You're not going out like that, Paul

Hannibal seems to have fallen by the wayside, mostly forgotten by your average moviegoer. If anybody you ask does, in fact, recall having seen it at some point, I am fairly certain that the only thing they can tell you about is brains, in some form or other. It's either the stupid scene in which Lecter slices off Krendler's crown to serve his brain matter alongside a fine wine sauce and side salad, or it is the even stupider final scene, in which a young child with an unnatural desire to try weird food badgers Lecter into feeding him tupperwared leftovers of Krendler's brain. Mmmm, tastes of Pabst Blue Ribbon and misogyny! I never took the Lecter chronicles for stories that had to be explicitly gory. We aren't supposed to fear that this immensely intelligent psychological professional will empty our skulls out like jack'o'lanterns. We are supposed to fear that he is the everyman, someone who we might start chatting to in a cafe, only for a short conversation to have given him everything he needs to mentally torment us for the rest of our lives. Murder is almost incidental when it comes to Hannibal Lecter. If it weren't, he would be your average Michael or Jason or Freddy. It is that razor-sharp brain that is so terrifying. This is why Hannibal eventually spills out into a silly freak show, culminating in Lecter feeding Krendler his own Michelin-star-worthy cerebral matter, before he chops off his own hand to save Starling the same fate. 

I have always believed that Lecter was in love with Starling, in some weird way or other. This movie tippy-toes around such an implication, and pushes it too far as to imply that Lecter would disable himself in such a fashion to avoid capture by the authorities. I mean, he has evaded them before, and has always been about self-preservation. How can he play piano or write or draw with one hand? OK, he is Hannibal Lecter, I'm sure he'd soon train himself to do so, but the point is that I don't believe that Lecter would do this out of desperation, or affection for Starling. I am far more inclined to believe that Starling would flee her tattered FBI career and scant social life, to take refuge with Lecter, with his money, intellectualism, and uncanny ability to evade capture. 

George R R Martin has said that if a writer changes the direction of his work halfway through the narrative (in his case, because fans have guessed what will happen), they inevitably throw the whole product out of joint. The first half, or whatever, has been carefully crafted to result in the logical second half, and moving the goalpost mid-game just ruins everything. Consider this when watching Hannibal which, for the most part, follows Harris' material. The main difference is the ending, and where Starling and Lecter end up. Harris was writing towards them living an exuberant life together under the radar, but Scott detours the third act toward a final confrontation, before Lecter escapes again, with all emotional ends untied. This bitter encounter, paired with Krendler's head-shrinking, gives us a really flaccid and unsatisfactory ending to the second chapter between one of the most memorable couples in film history. 

Hard Candy (2005)

 

What if...? is the central question to any writer. First you write what you know, then you ask 'what if...?'. I never thought a seriously thrilling psychological movie would - at least in my mind - spawn from an episode of To Catch A Predator. It is difficult to make a movie with a moral or societal message that doesn't come off as biased or preachy, and given today's climate, it is probably suitable that a movie like Hard Candy was made in the mid-'00s, just on the precipice of artistic expansion, mere years before the populace apparently became too precious to take a joke, or to acknowledge genuine social commentary when it presents itself. I cannot imagine a movie like Hard Candy being made either today, or even five years ago. It is sometimes terrifying how quickly the societal landscape evolves, and often not for the better, especially when it comes to freedom of artistic expression.

Hard Candy is an amazingly intelligent, sensitive and thrilling movie that is effectively a 90-minute  two-hander of intense conversation, like Educating Rita or Venus in Fur. Elliot Page plays Hayley, a fourteen-year-old girl who meets middle-aged photographer Geoff (Patrick Wilson) on a chatroom, and gets together with him at a local coffee house. They hit it off and she talks him into taking her back to his place, where things take an unusual and *SPOILERY* turn. Hayley roofies Geoff and he wakes up in a slightly less horrifying scenario than the fellas in Hostel: tied to a chair, threatened with bodily harm... and accused of child abuse. Hayley has targeted Geoff as a predator, but once he is subdued, the identity of the predator is suddenly up for question.

I thawt yew wawnted to be shayved... down thayr

It is rare, as the writer and director of this picture both remarked, for a movie to be so succinctly summarised, but as is often the case with character-driven pieces, plot is not necessarily pertinent. Almost Famous and Me Without You are two examples that spring to mind of one-line-plot movies that find their momentum in their immensely detailed characters, who feel like real people. Although Hard Candy is much harder-hitting material than either of these movies, it is essentially a character profile with genuine dramatic tension. Hayley is a vigilante and Geoff is a sinner of the worst kind who tries to spare his reputation the truth right until the end. It could work well as a stage play in its excellence with dialogue and characterisation, and purposeful use of literal frames to reflect the photographic lens through which Geoff allegedly sees the world. 

Hard Candy hangs heavily on its two leading actors, and they carry it with simultaneous ease and torment. Page, given the duality of Hayley, is required to craft a base character, and an alter ego masquerading as a naive teenager, and it is eerily effective. She shows little glimmers of flirtation and precociousness, while maintaining an adolescent naivete; later she suggests entirely through facial expression that her character was molested as a child, and sees this whole ordeal as retribution for not only herself, but for every other young person who was ever victimised. Wilson, meanwhile, runs the gamut of emotion, and is essentially the characterisation of the audience itself, reacting to the each new twist of the ordeal he finds himself in. Importantly, he never once shows true evil to anybody. He goes through flirtatious manipulation, lust, confusion, anger, mortal fear, rage, guilt, submission, but he never lets us see the side of him that caused Hayley to target him in the first place. He is a real, complex person with many layers, and Wilson's performance is nothing short of athletic.

For tonight is the night that my beautiful
creature is destined to be born!

Not only is this movie an intense emotional ride, but it is like wandering through a chic, minimalist art gallery to look at. Everything has a sleek Scandinavian flavour to it, with expressive pops of colour hinting at some thematic undertone. Indeed, the opening credits are a simple shifting of a single red shape among a variety of white backgrounds, suggesting a small but lingering figure stalking just beyond the periphery. And not for the first time, we are forced to consider who this figure really is. Perhaps their identity depends on what sort of a person is looking. Those with devious skeletons in their closet may see that figure as the reason they still look over their shoulder every day. Those of a more innocent nature might consider it the unremarkable perpetrator of terrible cruelty. 

St. Trinian's (2007)

 St. Trinian's has attitude oozing from every cinematic and dramatic pore. It typifies the last peak of real comedy, before fear of offending people became such a central social construct. It perfectly ties the visual wackiness of Ronald Searle's cartoons, the very kinky camp of the newly liberated '60s movies, and the wider spectrum of weirdness that was the nova of the 2000s. It achieved all this before the scene imploded into the comically-emasculated era we are now stuck in. Drag, drugs and innuendo are the heart of this picture, in perfect keeping with the infamous reputation that St. Trinian's has held for decades. I saw this movie in the cinema upon its initial release, and as a fifteen-year-old, really enjoyed the rebellion and overall craziness; but it has proven to be one of those movies like Beetlejuice or Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, that I realise, upon each subsequent viewing, contains lots of clever and well-masked adult jokes. This is your perfect 'family' movie, the kind that is all but dead now, but was still staggering on during my own teenage years.

Don't worry - they are all of age.

Annabel Fritton (Talulah Riley) is marooned at St. Trinian's school by her rich, neglectful father (Rupert Everett), where her estranged aunt Camilla (also Rupert Everett) is the flirtatious and boundless headmistress. Her new classmates put Annabel through the ringer, testing her ability to be one of them, while the school's chaotic educational and financial habits put it into foreclosure. In a staunch effort to avoid being sent to 'normal schools', the girls plan a heist in which they will steal a priceless piece of art and sell it on the black market to bring their beloved sanctuary back into the black. Helming this mission are Flash Harry (Russell Brand in his mid-'00s heyday) and head girl Kelly (Gemma Arterton). 

It's hard to make a movie that really speaks to young people. Teenagers were a newly-discovered breed in the 1950s, and music and book genres scrambled to keep up with the fresh demand. But real young adult cinema has always been a rare underdog of a genre, and any picture that dared to walk the line generally fell on either the terrible side, or the fantastic side. Roger Ebert once said of Richard Linklater's School of Rock, "[it] is about as serious as it can be about its comic subject, and never condescends to its characters or its audience. The kids aren't turned into cloying little clones, but remain stubborn, uncertain, insecure and kidlike." His take on School of Rock ran through my head for the entire running time of St. Trinian's. This movie is aligned entirely with its young characters, completely understanding their emotions and motives; meanwhile, adult figures of authority are also rounded people, whose vices form a common ground between child and grownup. 

Love story of the century

Miss Fritton carries on the grand tradition of the headmistress of St. Trinian's being a man in drag. Rupert Everett, a veteran of campy comedy, is the jewel in this crown. His performance is affected just on the verge of silliness, always taking itself only as seriously as it can be. He accommodates a big white flipper with a poncy sort of lisp, dresses like the Queen on her downtime, and leans fully into his romantic interest in Colin Firth, who lends the second appendage in this spicy little two-hander. Firth is a government minister of education, and plans to rehabilitate Britain's schools by starting from the bottom: St. Trinian's. When he rocks up to "the gates of hell", he discovers not only an underground vodka distillery, a crucified student and a tropical zoo, but that the captain of this ghostly ship is his former university lover. Firth and Everett enjoy a stiffly flirtatious relationship, before she finally gets him drunk one night, and he wakes up in far fewer clothes than he remembers having on.

Heh. Didn't recognise her without
her brother's dick in her

The British film industry has experienced a lot of peaks and troughs over the years. When the original St. Trinian's movies were made in the '50s and '60s, films were on the decline due to the sharp rise of TV in the home. However, what you couldn't get on TV was sex and violence, which in turn led to a boom in small-budget horrors and sexy comedies, like the Carry On and Hammer movies. Aside from the odd worldwide sensations like the Harry Potter or James Bond franchises, the British film scene rarely eeks out into the wider audience, especially now that Disney and other such soulless corporations are buying up any property worth having. It is only fitting that the reboot of St. Trinian's would be a bombastic, utterly British picture, absolutely bursting at the seams with both new and experienced British talent. Firth and Everett are alongside the likes of Celia Imrie, Toby Jones and Lena Headey, while the student population consists of Gemma Arterton, Lily Cole, Juno Temple and Paloma Faith, among others. It's an absolute smorgasbord of UK names.

It takes a really keen director and/or writer to make a truly enjoyable movie for young people. Stephen Spielberg directing Hook, or any John Hughes project, or Rob Reiner on Stand By Me: these guys absolutely understood being young, and what fun and fear and frolics were. St. Trinian's is directed by Barnaby Thompson (producer of the Kevin and Perry movies) and Oliver Parker (who started out in classic literature movies and merged into comedy), and their backgrounds play so nicely into their management of this project. They both understand playful kiddish humour, but can structure a decent narrative and appreciate old source material. They prove to have been the perfect choices for this picture, which could have gone so far awry. Revivals of beloved old properties usually have a hard time reintroducing themselves and gaining traction, and for one reason or another, they are often quite awful. St. Trinian's is such an entertaining experience, that treads the path of its predecessors without it being dated. It is a modern Carry On, the likes of which could have spawned others of its ilk, much to the joy of the British audience. 

Rat Race (2001)

We are living in dangerous times. Day by day, a loud-mouthed minority is sulking its way to centre stage and making nonsensical demands of the sensical majority. Comedy is a victim of modern 21st century culture. In recent years, it has been gradually distanced, as if by a disinterested spouse; increasingly held at arm's length. This last year or so has brought about an 'ethic' cleansing, if you like, and some invisible but all-powerful entity has dictated that much of the comedy we have known and loved over the years is no longer suitable for human consumption. So terrified are those at the top of hurting the feelings of some battered minority that no group or topic is fair game for a laugh. Top filmmakers have turned from comedy because of the overly-sensitive society we now face each day. The Zucker/Abrahams union have indirectly been all but exiled from the modern comedy cinema scene, and in retrospect, their first picture of the 21st century was already far tamer than their hits of the '80s. Perhaps I am some sort of cretin, but the sort of comedy that these guys made pretty much epitomises my taste in humour.

Loosely based on the '60s comedy It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Rat Race is an ensemble picture with a cast rivalling many that came before it. Donald Sinclair (John Cleese) is the rich tycoon at the head of the Venetian Hotel on the Las Vegas strip, whose days are passed by placing outlandish bets with a group of other, equally-rich tycoons. His latest whim involves randomly selecting a handful of the hotel's patrons, and setting them loose on a rule-free race to New Mexico to retrieve a duffel bag containing $2 million cash. Like the best of ensemble pictures, every party is equally important to the plot, overall outcome and comedy, so I will outline each of them. Vera (Whoopi Goldberg) has just reunited with her birth daughter Meryl (Lanai Chapman); Randy (Jon Lovitz) is on a long-awaited family vacation with his wife Bev (Kathy Najimy) and their two children; corporate robot Nick (Breckin Meyer) is too eager to leave a friend's bachelor party, and he meets spunky helicopter pilot Tracy (Amy Smart, in a cute little reunion since Road Trip); Duane (Seth Green) and Wayne (Vince Vieluf) are brothers and petty criminals looking for the scheme that will financially see them through the day; Owen (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is a recently disgraced football referee trying to avoid the attention of a public that hates his guts; and Enrico Pollini (Rowan Atkinson doing his best non-mute Bean) is a random narcoleptic Italian. Along the way they encounter minor characters played by the likes of Wayne Knight, Kathy Bates, Dean Cain and - of all fucking people - Gloria Allred.

Genuine reactions to co-starring with John Cleese

A long list of big names is only a small part of making a great movie. Actors are still people, and just like in less interesting work environments, people don't always work well together, they don't always turn out to be as qualified for the job as they first seemed, sometimes they realise they have taken a job that they hate and drop out. Sometimes the management doesn't deserve the talent they have hired. But then, sometimes, a really great combination of people, both in front of and behind the camera, is hit upon, and they produce something really special together. This doesn't always equate to initial box office or critical success, but it is often recognised eventually, as Rat Race has come to be in more recent years. 

Andy Breckman is credited for the script, but it is very obvious that the Zucker/Abrahams team have had either a direct or indirect hand in its structure and finer details. The likes of The Naked Gun and Airplane! have shown their ability to satisfactorily weave humour into traditional story arcs, and Rat Race is almost identical in basic format: major characters are succinctly introduced in small opening scenes, then the driving crisis or motivation takes the narrative lead, with much hilarity ensuing, before the crisis or motivation is brought to a decent conclusion, leaving us with a bunch of characters we are fond of, and a fairly basic story well told.

Well, you'll laugh later.

If one takes a cursory look at typical '80s and '90s comedy, whether on film or TV, and then does the same at a '00s or '10s production, there are a number of fundamental differences. Let's compare, for example, Airplane! and Jack and Jill *shudder*, or early Simpsons with more recent seasons of Family Guy. One of the most prominent differences is the set-up of what one might call a 'joke'. Earlier examples recognised a theatrical method that went into enjoyable comedy, and so would give a joke its source, its stream and its river, so to speak. Take the intercom skit at the beginning of Airplane!, which begins with the usual announcements we are all used to hearing at an airport; then the two announcers start opposing each other and arguing, before we finally realise that they are a recently broken-up couple using their work environment to take digs at each other. You wouldn't tell this as your typical anecdotal joke around the water cooler - it relies on a realistic context and human delivery, and it is this humanistic element that makes comedy truly great. Compare this, if you dare, to any sequence in Jack and Jill, that expects its audience to laugh at the mere mention of bodily fluid. Prolonged sequences showing us the results of Mexican food on the human bowel, and nothing about our characters, make for cheap laughs, if there are even people out there who still laugh at feces anymore. 

Rat Race allows each group of characters to realise their own plot thread, while cleverly crossing their paths every now and then en route to the finish line, and actually being funny. As the characters endure humiliating, terrifying, painful, and all too illegal calamities in pursuit of the prize money, Sinclair monitors them from Vegas, taking bets from his rich buddies on who will prosper, among other things. Their amusing little bets that punctuate the race action range from guessing how much a hooker would charge for a rather exotic 'party', to which hotel maid can hang from a curtain rail the longest. A thoroughly unexpected wrap-up of the race reunites Sinclair with the competitors, and leaves him thoroughly disgusted at the idea of having thrown away millions of dollars at once, for the first time in his life. 

Let's demonstrate what I mean about the clever style of comedy by breaking down one or two sequences from Rat Race. Bev having insisted that she and the kids accompany him on what is supposedly an urgent drive to a spontaneous job interview, Randy is unwilling to make any pit stops on his way to New Mexico. So when his young daughter needs to use the bathroom, a bit of back-and-forth within the car hard-cuts to the poor girl with her backside stuck out of the window of the speeding car. In itself, this is a funny outcome; but when the action later cuts back to Randy, having been pulled over by police, with an officer in the background angrily wiping down the windscreen of his car, the joke makes its slam dunk. Jack and Jill forces its audience to listen to a straight minute or so of fart noises while Jill mounts the toilet after her first taste of Mexican cuisine; Rat Race simply implies to us the more disgusting element of the situation, so that we can get straight to laughing at its aftermath.

Wait wait wait! What if we were the new 
panel on The View?

On another path, Vera and Meryl have crashed their car in the middle of the desert, and stumble upon a group of scientists preparing to make an attempt at the land speed record with a rocket car. Blagging their way into the cockpit by posing as models, they steal the car, and end up on a breakneck journey across the sand, jaws flapping. Meanwhile, apparently nearby, Nick and Tracy are being held up at gunpoint by a cowboy mechanic, who mocks them, insisting that if what he was doing was so wrong, the Heavenly Father would give him a sign. At that exact moment, the rocket car zooms by, the force of which brings the mechanic's establishment crashing to the ground. Then the joke goes that one step further, when the rocket car finally screeches to a halt, and the ladies, suffering severe motion sickness, are mistaken for members of a group of mental patients out on a trip in the desert, and taken aboard their bus.

It is this organic, unwinding motion of the comedy that makes it so damn satisfying. It's like going to throw away an empty cigarette carton, only to realise there is one cigarette left in there. This is how you make a joke runs its course, rather than wring itself dry. Compare either of the scenarios I have just explained to the dreadful 'Wonderful Life' argument over the dinner table in Jack and Jill. That scene (for some goddamn reason) thinks that the more times it makes the same non-joke in a row, the funnier it gets. It is absolutely possible to milk a single comedic idea, but it has to be nurtured, not tossed in mid-air and stretched transparent like a flimsy pizza base. There are very few bits in Rat Race that could be considered 'immediate gratification' humour. Zucker/Abrahams are habitual in their need to make art of a funny idea, and make it integral to the story they are trying to tell - because after all, they are telling an amusing story, not just shocking or sickening us into laughing in the moment. Every ridiculous scenario that befalls the characters has a direct impact on their journey, and like songs in a good musical, they are used to progress the plot, not stop it in its tracks and divert things.

The cast seeing the future of comedy

Comedy endings are hard to pull off in a way that satisfies the story, the character arcs and, importantly, the humour. The likes of Jack and Jill like to pretend that they have a heart at their core, and so follow the rom-com formula of having characters argue, go their separate ways, and romantically reunite before living happily ever after, but these sorts of movies often cast off the comedy element in favour of a more traditionally conclusive ending. Well Rat Race manages to give us an ending we really don't expect, which concludes the arc of each character without any individual coming out on top, and tie the loose ends of the story in a way that feels meaningful but not indulgent or overly sappy.

Comedy is walking a tightrope right now, and it looks as if it will never quite get to the other side, or even fall one way or the other. It feels like the line will just get thinner and thinner until nobody is willing to attempt the walk in the first place. In the era when people are deleting tweets just to avoid, or attempt to back-pedal on, social outrage, very few people are willing to put out an entire movie that demonstrates cutting commentary, or simply makes us laugh. Sacha Baron Cohen is the only exception that springs to mind. Although Airplane! still gets daytime reruns on TV, its content is heavily cut to make it acceptable to its viewing audience. Even Rat Race, a spring chicken of a movie, gets the same broadcast treatment, with a lot of the context of the comedy stripped. So many grounds the script dares to breach, such as Nazis, men in drag, porn and mental illness, would be avoided like the plague by movie-makers these days. People died in those camps; transgender people should not be joked about; misogyny should not be encouraged; mental illness is a pandemic to be understood and helped. I oppose none of these points, and importantly, nor does this movie. Fun is not being made of massacre or gender identity, but society's reactions to these topics are being used to frame the unwittingly horrendous situations the characters find themselves in.

Jon Lovitz realising that one day he would have some
douchebag tweeting at him for this.

Consider, for example, the scenario with the most elaborate set-up in the whole movie. As you will observe, it is a continually unfolding narrative, as characterises the movie. Desperate for a break from the road, Randy's daughter convinces him to stop at the signposted Barbie Museum, which turns out to be a shrine to SS figurehead Klaus Barbie, and not her beloved Mattel toy. When Duane and Wayne happen to pass by and notice their opponent's car, they vandalise it, forcing Randy to hijack Hitler's car from the museum parking lot. While driving, Eva Braun's mislaid dark lipstick gets smeared on the steering wheel, and a sudden brake sees the red-hot cigarette lighter fly into Randy's open mouth. By the time the car has been crashed into a WWII veterans celebration, he has acquired a moustache from the wheel and an unintelligible speaking voice from the burned tongue. His attempts to communicate his plight to the veterans in the crowd lead to him being shot at. The point of the joke is not the evils of the Nazi regime; the point is that Randy has, through a comedy of errors, come to be mistaken for someone impersonating Hitler in order to offend veterans. And this is about the most unwanted, uncomfortable situation that a person could find themselves in. That is why it is funny.