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Rat Race
Paramount Pictures

Rat Race reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 52 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.4 out of 10
based on 26 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 57 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sexual references, crude humor, partial nudity and language

Starring Whoopi Goldberg, John Cleese, Cuba Gooding Jr., Rowan Atkinson, Jon Lovitz, and Kathy Najimy

An irreverent look at the outrageous lengths people will go for the chance to win two million dollars.


GENRE(S): Comedy  
WRITTEN BY: Andy Breckman  
DIRECTED BY: Jerry Zucker  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: January 29, 2002 
Video: January 29, 2002 
Theatrical: August 17, 2001 
RUNNING TIME: 112 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: Canada / USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
The funniest film to come along since "South Park," and one that succeeds in a more difficult and satisfying way.
Read Full Review
90
Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
Inspired, elaborately plotted, and unusually satisfying variable-speed chase comedy.
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88
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The movie is over in a breezy 112 minutes, but it may be another half-hour before your sides quit aching.
Read Full Review
83
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The easygoing silliness with which this late-summer movie surprise scuttles from mayhem to mayhem and the verve with which the cast throws itself into the fray are so cheering and liberating.
Read Full Review
80
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Even though this will not go down as a great Zucker comedy, he has made Rat Race funnier than it could reasonably hope to be.
Read Full Review
80
Time Richard Schickel
It's a fine madness, full of jaunty desperation, survivable disasters and the kind of ferocious concentration on a really stupid idea that once propelled Wile E. Coyote.
80
Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark
An outrageously silly movie that makes me laugh.
75
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The movie is so cheerfully, furiously relentless, its contagious silliness wears you down.
Read Full Review
75
Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan
Rat Race isn't a stupid movie -- it's an aggressively stupid movie that journeys into realms of absurdity that are, well, aggressively funny.
Read Full Review
70
Washington Post Rita Kempley
And even though the jokes keep on coming, not all are side-splitters. But before it's all over, they will have viewers howling at one or more pants-wettingly silly moments.
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70
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Atkinson, somehow managing to be simultaneously delicate and broad, can do things with his face that shouldn't be legal. His delighted and delightful Mr. Pollini is a little taste of comic genius.
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70
LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert
The good news is that this off-the-wall ensemble comedy may just be the summer's happiest surprise.
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63
Boston Globe Jay Carr
A strong ending might have obscured the mediocrity in the writing, or at least diverted us, but the ending is sentimental where it needed to be hard-edged and comically merciless. For a film about people hurtling forward, Rat Race is pretty pedestrian.
50
New York Post Lou Lumenick
A cheesy affair with no big winners. Especially the audience.
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50
Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
Zucker gives the movie an ebullient spirit, but he also keeps everything at the same loud pitch throughout.
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50
USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
Hits its silly stride early and never shifts into a higher gear.
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42
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
A sad, sad, sad, sad rip-off.
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40
TV Guide Steve Simels
For every inspired bit -- Templeton playing chauffeur to 40 I Love Lucy-era Lucille Ball impersonators -- there's one that falls spectacularly flat.
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40
Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Zucker's frenzied trifle is painless, with a few decent running gags -- and an ocean of bad ones.
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38
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Despite these flaws, people sick of gross-out films and teen-sex comedy may be so hungry for farce that they laugh.
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20
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Overheated, underdone farce. Race for the exit.
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20
Variety Robert Koehler
A lineup of comic actors running on empty long before the dust settles.
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20
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
This ripoff, directed by Jerry Zucker, has a few funny moments, but it's a sad sad sad sad example of what Hollywood is currently serving up -- and what audiences are swallowing -- as summer entertainment.
20
The New York Times A.O. Scott
It lumbers from one scene to the next with the stop-and-start mistiming generally seen in the outtakes shown at the end of the "Cannonball Run" movies, which this picture resembles in spirit.
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12
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Somnambulistic pacing, kerplunkingly unfunny jokes, and mugging thespians making fools of themselves. Truly torturous spectacle.
Read Full Review
10
New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky
There's nothing more enervating than a stupid film with only random, and perhaps accidental, flashes of smarts; the rare prescient moments only serve to highlight how banal and vacant the rest of the movie is, especially when it stoops to conquer the gross-out market bled dry by the Farrelly Brothers and their myriad acolytes.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 57 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Alex H gave it a0:
How do people think this movie is good? Rat Race is a horrible, annoying, and unfunny movie that should've never been made.

andrew r gave it a10:
"Should have bought a squirrel" This movie is awsome!

Michael D. gave it an8:
I'm usually a total comedy snob. In this genre of comedy there is very little that I really like. Where this movie succeeds is in a whole new original kind of slap-stick that forces you to chuckle at least at its inventiveness.

Greg U. gave it a9:
This is a really funny movie. Oh and by the way, no one cares if it is a rip off of A MAd waste of time er whatever. THis is an awsome movie and that's final.

Nate H. gave it a 4:
This rating is only when the movie is compared to "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," which is the best comedy ever made. Too bad they had to pathetically try to rip it off and give NO CREDIT to the original.

Jude S. gave it a 10:
This movie was so funny! I love it!

The Voice gave it a 6:
Rather lame..."hahaha"

Read more user comments...

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