Ruthless People

(Movie Review) 

I've been relaxing in the evenings recently by re-watching some of the comedy classics--movies like "Airplane!", "Top Secret", and the Naked Gun trilogy. And as I was listening to the DVD commentary for these movies, I realized that they were all made by the same people. (Which, I guess, really shouldn't have been all that surprising. But I just never put 2 and 2 together before). 

Furthermore, I learned that these same fellows (Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (W)) were also responsible for 

"Ruthless People", which I had not seen. "Ruthless People" came out in 1986, when I was but a wee lad of 7. So I never saw it at the time. 

...Although I do remember my parents renting it when it first came out. I wasn't allowed to watch it, for reasons I didn't understand at the time. 

I was still sheltered and innocent enough not to understand what it was I wasn't supposed to be watching. I was used to movies and cartoons being forbidden because they were too violent. But I didn't understand how a comedy could be off-limits. I was still ignorant of "adult situations" or those 4-letter words that society had assigned a moral value to. 

Like horror movies, the fact that I wasn't allowed to watch this movie set my imagination into overdrive, as I began to try and guess what was so horrible in this movie that I couldn't even see it? 

The years passed, and as I grew up I soon caught up with "Airplane!", "Top Secret" and "The Naked Gun" movies. In fact they were standard viewing for any gathering of teen-age kids. Whenever we got together for a swim team party, there was usually one of these movies playing on in the background. 

But "Ruthless People" never became a huge cult classic. So, unlike the other movies, I never caught up with it once I became a teen-ager. I never saw it re-run on cable late at night, or saw it at a party, or, for that matter, I don't even recall seeing it on the shelves at my video store. Consequently I forgot all about it. 

However, when I heard Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker talk about it on the DVD, I thought to myself, "Well, if it's half as funny as their other movies, I should definitely check it out." 

I went on youtube to search for some clips, just to give me a taste of what the movie was like. I wasn't greedy enough to expect that the whole movie would be available, but it was. And so I ended up watching it. (I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the copyright police flag this one, but as of this writing, it is still viewable here). 

There was one scene (were Danny DeVito is getting mugged, and all the cops jump out of their hiding place, and the criminal mutters "some neighborhood watch") that I actually remembered from my childhood. I must have walked into the living room to ask my parents a question or something, and caught a glimpse of this scene before being hustled out of the room again. 

It was odd, because that was over 20 years ago. And during the past 20 years, I've never thought about it. But as soon as I saw that scene, I remembered clear as day having seen it as a child (and having been confused about what it meant at the time). 

This is probably of interest to no one but myself, but it got me thinking about how our memories work, and how many memories that we think we've forgotten are really buried away in our heads somewhere, and simply awaiting the right trigger to unlock it. 

It seemed like an amazing discovery, but upon reflection, it's actually probably very common. I'm sure we've all had the experience of watching a movie or TV show, and then suddenly realizing that we had seen it years before, and that some scenes were still stored in our memory. 

There's a contrast to this, however. Anyone who keeps some sort of journal, diary, or blog can attest to the equally strange phenomenon of re-reading stuff from years past and thinking to yourself, "I don't remember this at all. Odd, this seems like the kind of dramatic/vivid/hilarious/embarrassing experience that I should remember, but I don't."
(Whenever I re-read my old journals, I'm reminded of Lewis Carrol's book: "Through the Looking Glass".
"The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never, never forget!" 

"You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it.")

Of course re-watching a movie is a lot different than real life. When you re-watch a movie, your brain is treated to the exact same visual experience matched with the exact same audio experience. In real life, these kind of exact memory triggers come by rarely. And so perhaps we have lots of memories stored away in our heads that will never be fully unlocked, popping up only in dreams or in weird feelings of deja-vu.

But I'm no psychologist and these are just some random musings. Onto the movie review: As everyone else has already noted, "Ruthless People" is a lot different than the "Naked Gun" movies, or the other Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker faire. It is, as Wikipedia puts it, "a straight comedy bordering on farce, with very few of the innumerable sight gags and puns and jokes of the other movies." The anything-for-a-laugh, see-how-many-gags-you-can-cram-into-one-minute feel of the other ZAZ movies is gone here. Which is somewhat of a pity, because, like them or hate them, it does seem to be what ZAZ does best. 

That's not to say that the plot of this movie doesn't have plenty of comic potential. A couple of kidnappers try and ransom a wife, not knowing that her husband is overjoyed at the fact that she is gone, and was secretly planning on killing her anyway. 

Judge Reinhold does a great job in this movie.
During the 80s, when Judge Reinhold was at the height of his fame, I didn't have a clue who he was, but in the years since I've caught up on most of his big movies: "Stripes", "Gremlins", "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", and "Beverly Hills Cop".

He is perfectly cast in this movie as a kidnapper who is out of his depth matched against his ruthless victims. Nobody does the look of comic despair better than Judge Reinhold.

The few twists and turns the plot takes along the way were interesting enough to keep my attention. Admittedly this film is no comedy classic, but I enjoyed it.

Link of the Day
The Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy.
and 54% of Tax Revenue Goes to Fund the Military
and March "Best Of"

Ruthless People: Movie Review (Scripted)