November 23, 2013

filmsgraded.com:
Raising Arizona (1987)
Grade: 86/100

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, John Goodman

What it's about. This eccentric comedy is set in Arizona though many of the characters have Southern accents. Nicolas Cage plays a well-intentioned but somewhat stupid man with a history of robbing convenience stores. He marries former policewoman Holly Hunter, who desperately wants a child but is unable to conceive.

The couple learns that the family of furniture baron Trey Wilson includes quintuplet infants. Hunter compels Cage to kidnap one of them to raise as the couple's own. But others learn that the infant is Wilson's, including Cage's obnoxious foreman Sam McMurray, escaped convicts John Goodman and William Forsythe, and malevolent biker bounty hunter Randall 'Tex' Cobb.

How others will see it. Raising Arizona was not the first film for the Coen brothers, or Nicolas Cage, or Holly Hunter, or John Goodman. But it was a stepping stone to superstardom for all those people. Surprisingly, the film ranks middling within the Coen oeuvre, per the imdb.com user ratings. Fargo is first, and the comedy The Big Lebowski is second. Raising Arizona currently ranks 11th.

The movie is generally appreciated, but it was mostly ignored by the Oscars and other film festivals. Perhaps it is too strange to be fully appreciated, unlike, for example, the Coen's No Country for Old Men, which is comparatively straightforward. Perhaps it is too cartoonish to be completely accepted. After all, John Goodman rises from the ground like Bullwinkle, and Randall 'Tex' Cobb has a fate similar to Wile E. Coyote at the hands of his own Acme gear.

I checked out the imdb.com user reviews to see why a small minority exists that dislikes this movie. In short, they are not amused. And those who deem the film without humor can find reason to fault it. Why does Holly Hunter marry Cage? Because he winked at her while being booked for bank robbery on several occasions? How does the bounty hunter arrive at Cage's trailer so quickly? Why would Cage invite company over to show off the mysterious new baby when its photograph is all over the news? Is he really that stupid?

How I felt about it. Actually, he is. Cage's character is dumber than a box of rocks. It seems that a vast majority of comedies feature at least one character who is truly stupid. Here, that character is Cage, though Hunter gives him a run for his money. This must explain why Trey Wilson doesn't turn them in. He figures that nature has punished them enough already.

No matter. The movie is about as hilarious as a Hollywood comedy can get. The obsession with Dr. Spock's "instructions," the yokels who obey the commands of robbers, the sheepish deadpan expressions by Cage, Goodman as a rascal, Cobb as a semi-supernatural demonic force, it's all great. We do wonder how Cage avoids getting shot that night when it seems every man in the county is aiming a shotgun his way. The answer: it is written that way in the script.

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