Anyone who wants to criticize the value of comedy in American pop culture, need look no further than Ruthless People for proof that laughter is the best medicine.
In 1986, the directing team of ZAZ, Jerry Zucker, David Zucker and Jim Abrahams, was still flying high on the success of Airplane! despite the failed TV show, Police Squad! (basis for The Naked Gun movies) and the lesser recognized Top Secret! with a young Val Kilmer.
Then, they decided to direct someone else's script. The result is one of the funniest comedies ever, comparing to Airplane! Loosely based on O. Henry's "The Ransom of the Red Chief," the plot is complicated, so just bare with me.
Danny Devito plays Sam Stone, the spandex mini-skirt king, a greedy little weasel of a man, who is married to Barbara (Bette Middler) a pampered heiress who is so annoying "Ghandi would have strangled her." Sam Stone is having an affair with Carol Dodsworth (Anita Morris) who is having an affair with Earl Mott (Bill Pullman) who is as one character observes might just be the dumbest man on the planet. Sam trusts Carol so much that he tells her his plans to murder Barbara to inherit her money. Carol double-crosses Sam and gets Earl to videotape the murder in attempt to blackmail him.
This has all the workings of a flim noir, but I remind you this is a comedy.
However, Sam Stone can't murder Barbara because she has already been kidnapped. When Sam hears that the kidnappers will kill Barbara if he doesn't follow their exact orders, he does the opposite. The blood will be off his hands and he's rich.
There's only one problem. The kidnappers, Ken and Sandy Kessler (Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater, respectively) are more Ozzie and Harriet than Bonnie and Clyde. They want a little reparations on Sam Stone after stealing their idea for the spandex mini-skirt
To tell anymore would give too much away. If you think I've told a mouthful, well, there's more that happens. I've just described the first twenty minutes of a ninety minute movie.
Ruthless People works because ZAZ knows that dramatic irony works well in comedy. Every character in this movie knows just as much as they should know to know nothing at all.
Throw in subplots about a serial killer and a prominent public official engaged in a lewd act, it's amazing that writer Dale Launer was able to bring it altogether in the end.
DeVito has never been better than in this movie. He is the type of actor who can take slimy creeps and turn them into likeable characters. Just watch his face go from anger to confusion to relief and excitement as he hears his wife is kidnapped. DeVito is actually having to act well at acting badly around the police to show that he cares about Barbara.
Middler has a more difficult role of being totally loathed for the first half and then liked for the second half. But she does it.
DeVito and Middler should have gotten Academy Awards for their roles.
Reinhold and Slater are perfectly casted as Ken and Sandy. Bill Pullman, in his first movie role, is great. The late Anita Morris gives a good send-up of the femme fatales in her role.
Ruthless People is vulgar, so it's not for everyone. It is also noteworthy for being the last movie David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams directed together.
For them, the third movie was the charm.
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