RUTHLESS PEOPLE

Rip It Up, Issue 112, 1 November 1986, Page 8

RUTHLESS PEOPLE

Directors: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker There’s a marvellous moment in Ruthless People where Bette Midler, thoroughly desolate at her husband’s refusal to pay even a $50,000 ransom for her, shrieks, “I’ve been kidnapped by K-Mart.” The team who gave Airplane to the world turn their attention to the Seven Deadly Sins of the American consumer society, or at least two of them: lust and cupidity. Danny DeVito, as Sam Stone, whose scheme to rid himself of wife Bette Midler erupts into a farce that entangles everyone from the police commissioner to the roving bedroom killer, is a personification of these vices. Playing alongside Midler in the best turn of her cinematic career, whether pacing around their crazily modern Bel Air apartment, or avidly shocking wrong numbers with ripely obscene ripostes, DeVito has more opportunites than he had in either Romancing the Stone or Jewel of the Nile. The broad style of comedy, often veering into the coarse, may not be everyone’s idea of Good Clean Fun, but one can’t argue with the sleek cinematography of Dutchman, Jan Deßont, who catches the unreal neon-and-plastic world of LA to perfection. Don’t be late, either, or you might miss Sally Cruikshank’s witty and stylish animated credits.