Cuba Gooding Jr. (right) in "Rat Race."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film an: Stars: Whoopi Goldberg and Cuba Gooding Jr. Director: Jerry Zucker Rated: PG-13, with profanity and innuendo Length: 112 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(August 17, 2001) -- Rat Race is the second coming of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, a 1963 film many consider a bona fide cinema classic.

The earlier film featured wacky comedy legends Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar and others racing madcap over the American southwest for a huge pile of money.

I'm not among Mad World's many fans. At more than three hours, it's way too long, and its moments of hilarious glory are weighed down by seemingly endless schtick.

But Mad World's influence is all over the new comedy, Rat Race.

But here's the good news: While Mad World seemed even longer than its gargantuan 188 minutes, the faster-paced Rat Race seems shorter than its compact 112 minutes.

And Rat Race has more laughs -- that's progress.

In Rat Race, six parties are selected at random at a Las Vegas casino and given the chance to race toward a locker in a New Mexico train station, where $2 million awaits. There is only one rule: No rules.

They don't know, though, that they're being electronically traced and carefully followed. The eccentric casino owner (John Cleese) is offering his high-rollers the chance to bet on their favorite from among the six contestants.

The contestants are:

• A mother and her estranged daughter (Whoopi Goldberg and Lanai Chapman), who meet in Vegas.
  
• A disgraced NFL referee (Cuba Gooding Jr.) who's in hiding after blowing a coin flip at the start of a sudden-death period. He unfortunately starts his race by grabbing a ride from a football-gambling cabbie (Paul Rodriguez) who lost his shirt because of the ref's miscue.
  
• A narcoleptic Italian (Rowan Atkinson) who hitches a ride with a medical technician (Wayne Knight) who is manhandling a heart he's transporting for a transplant.

• The Pear family, a deceitful husband (Jon Lovitz), his unhelpful wife (Kathy Najimy) and their two bratty kids, who end up having a vacation they never counted on.
  
• A straight-arrow lawyer (Breckin Meyer) who teams with a reckless helicopter pilot (Amy Smart), and learns some laws are meant to be broken.
  
• And two bumbling, con-artists brothers (Seth Green and Vince Vieluf).

For example, after the angry cabbie dumps the NFL ref in the desert, the ref hijacks a tour bus loaded with Lucy Ricardo look-alikes, en route to a Vegas convention -- and I Love Lucy wackiness ensues.

And, as the Pear family speeds across the desert, the daughter spots a sign for the Barbie museum and the daughter whines that she has to see it. But they discover it's a Klaus Barbie museum, run by neo-Nazis.

The Pears only hope is to escape -- in Adolf Hitler's touring car.

Rat Race is the flat-out funniest film of the summer, a scoopful of slapstick silliness that runs refreshingly counter to the bodily fluids and gross-out humor that dominate film comedy today.