after watching " rat race " last week , i noticed my cheeks were sore and realized that , when not laughing aloud , i had held a grin for virtually all of the film 's 112 minutes .
saturday night , i attended another sneak preview for the movie and damned if i did n't enjoy it as much the second time as the first .
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rat race " is a great goofy delight , a dandy mix of energetic performances , inspired sight gags and flat - out silliness
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hands down , this is the most fun film of the summer .
the movie begins with zippy retro - style opening credits that look like they were torn straight out of a ' 60s slapstick comedy , featuring animated photos of the cast attached to herky - jerky bodies bounding around the screen .
then comes the setup .
donald sinclair ( john cleese ) , the extremely rich owner of the venetian hotel and casino in las vegas , enjoys concocting unusual bets for his high rolling clients .
to that end , he places a half dozen very special tokens in his slot machines .
gathering together the lucky token holders , he explains , " today you have a chance to play a game where the odds of winning are one in six .
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the competition is simple : each contestant gets a key that opens a locker in silver city , n .
m . , containing $ 2 million in cash .
there is a transmitter in every key , so that sinclair and his cronies can keep track of who is ahead .
the race has no rules ?
whichever contestant reaches the locker first gets the money .
since it would be wrong to spoil any of the jokes , let 's use the next few paragraphs to profile the racers .
decked out in flashy , trashy clothing and sporting big hair , vera baker ( whoopi goldberg ) is in town to reunite with the daughter she gave up for adoption as a baby .
she finds that grown - up merrill ( lanai chapman ) is erudite , conservative and more than a little bit wary of this stranger trying to jump into her life .
thrown together , it becomes clear that both women share a fierce competitive nature .
owen templeton ( cuba gooding jr . ) is currently the most hated man in america .
an nfl referee , he cost gamblers all over the country enormous amounts of money by blowing a call in a high - profile game .
after escaping from a vengeful cab driver , owen gets to new mexico by masquerading as the driver for a busload of lucy ricardo impersonators heading to a convention .
mr .
pollini ( rowan atkinson ) is a cheerful , odd little italian man on holiday in america .
he also is narcoleptic and falls asleep at the most inopportune times .
pollini hitches a ride with zack ( wayne knight ) , a hyper - tense ambulance driver carrying a human heart across country for a transplant operation .
randy pear ( jon lovitz ) promised his wife beverly ( kathy najimy ) and two kids a fun - filled vacation in las vegas .
fearful that beverly will be angry over his involvement in the race , he claims that he must travel to silver city for a job interview .
beverly insists the family stay together , so they hop in the mini - van and tear off into the desert .
brothers duane ( seth green ) and blaine ( vince vieluf )
cody are young , crooked and stupid .
blaine has a speech impediment due to his poorly self - done tongue piercing , and duane is the only person who can come close to understanding him .
the boys will stop at nothing to reach their goal .
finally , nick shaffer ( breckin meyer ) is a no - nonsense lawyer - in - training who recruits helicopter pilot tracy faucet ( amy smart ) for the journey .
at first glance , they seem blandly wholesome , but all that changes when tracy buzzes the home of her boyfriend shawn ( dean cain ) and spies him swimming with another woman .
director jerry zucker ( " airplane , " " ghost " )
leaps from racer to racer , periodically returning to las vegas where sinclair and mr .
grisham ( dave thomas ) , his personality - impaired right hand man , continue cooking up bizarre bets for the gamblers .
as with any zucker production , a few jokes fall flat , but the momentum of the comedy zooms past those missteps .
high points for me include a bit involving kathy bates as a roadside squirrel salesperson and an intricately set up gag that carries jon lovitz and family from a bizarre museum to an outdoor rally , with an utterly tasteless and screamingly funny pay - off .
had i been part of the filmmaking team , i would have ditched a joke where a key is dropped into a baby 's clothes and instead had the key get lost in the cleavage of a dozing society matron .
it would have drawn the same laugh without the squirm - inducing hint of child molestation .
i also would have selected a different band for a concert sequence .
my god , do we really need yet another movie with smash mouth performing " all star ? " but enough carping .
" rat race " is a riot , with terrific no - holds - barred performances from the diverse cast . see it , see it again and when the dvd comes out , buy it , because a movie this hilarious will surely have outtakes to die for .
high points for me see it again the most fun film inspired sight gags and flat - out silliness terrific no - holds - barred performances see it a great goofy delight diverse cast i had held a grin for virtually all of the film 's 112 minutes to die for energetic performances is a riot the momentum of the comedy zooms past buy it