Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
72 Adela
39 Adventures of Power
78 Afghan Star
61 After the Storm
66 Afterschool
xx All the Best
58 American Casino
72 Amreeka
48 Antichrist
73 Araya
62 Art & Copy
55 As Seen Through These Eyes
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
13 Beautiful Life, A
70 Beeswax
35 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71 Big Fan
66 Black Dynamite
51 Blind Date
xx Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76 Bliss
35 Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57 Boys Are Back, The
45 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
70 Bronson
45 Burning Plain, The
xx Carriers
55 Casi Divas
57 Chelsea on the Rocks
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
59 Collapse
44 Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
67 Departures
xx Dil Bole Hadippa
71 Disgrace
xx Do Knot Disturb
70 Earth Days
24 Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
xx Eulogy for a Vampire
xx Everyone Else
xx Fatal Promises
56 Fifty Dead Men Walking
62 Five Minutes of Heaven
74 Flame & Citron
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
28 Free Style
xx From Mexico with Love
50 Fuel
25 Gentlemen Broncos
50 Give Me Your Hand
58 Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
52 Grace
64 Harmony and Me
81 Headless Woman, The
xx Heretics, The
63 Horse Boy, The
73 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
74 Humpday
94 Hurt Locker, The
29 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16 If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75 In Search of Beethoven
83 In the Loop
61 Intimate Enemies
42 Irene in Time
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
19 Labor Day
xx Laila's Birthday
41 Little Ashes
41 Little Traitor, The
66 Liverpool
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
83 Maid, The
xx Ministers, The
59 More Than a Game
67 Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
xx Mystery Team
48 New York, I Love You
73 Night and Day
66 No Impact Man
47 Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34 Other Man, The
xx Painter Sam Francis, The
54 Paper Heart
xx Paradise
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
44 Peter and Vandy
35 Play the Game
77 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx Pretty Ugly People
65 Providence Effect, The
76 Rembrandt's J'accuse
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
40 Shrink
61 Skin
77 Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx Skiptracers
46 Splinterheads
39 St. Trinian's
89 Still Walking
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
55 Storm
65 Tetro
70 That Evening Sun
72 Thirst
xx Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61 Trucker
xx Turning Green
83 U2 3D
66 Unmade Beds
66 Unmistaken Child
70 Visual Acoustics
55 Walt & El Grupo
67 Way We Get By, The
69 We Live in Public
64 Wedding Song, The
64 Where is Where?
xx White on Rice
74 Woman in Berlin, A
69 World's Greatest Dad
70 Yes Men Fix the World
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx You, the Living

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Rat Race

EMAILPRINTParamount Pictures

Rat Race reviews
52
8.4 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 26 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 57 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy

Written by: Andy Breckman

Directed by: Jerry Zucker

Release Date:
Theatrical: August 17, 2001
DVD: January 29, 2002

Running Time: 112 minutes, Color

Origin: Canada / USA

Summary

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.

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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
50

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Zucker gives the movie an ebullient spirit, but he also keeps everything at the same loud pitch throughout.

Read Full Review >
50

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Hits its silly stride early and never shifts into a higher gear.

Read Full Review >
42

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

A sad, sad, sad, sad rip-off.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
40

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Zucker's frenzied trifle is painless, with a few decent running gags -- and an ocean of bad ones.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
20

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Overheated, underdone farce. Race for the exit.

Read Full Review >
20

Variety Robert Koehler

A lineup of comic actors running on empty long before the dust settles.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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

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 >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use