Ruthless People

Ruthless People is a divine comedy, thanks in large part to bombastic Bette Midler, who's no longer down and out in Beverly Hills but chained to a bedstead in Santa Monica. She's an explosive bundle of kvetch and kitsch, the spark in this madcap kidnap caper. Practiced parodists Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker of Airplane direct, but this is no parody. It's a comedy of errors that makes no mistakes. Sophisticated, silly, sexy, it has assorted storylines as solidly linked as cartoon sausages and a pace that's lickety-split. Dale Launer debuts with this terrific screenplay, which builds and builds a reckless, raunchy crescendo of laughs. [27 June 1986, p.29]

Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, the directors of the smash Airplane! and the underrated Top Secret!, here turn their hands to a more traditional character comedy, yet this film's funniest effects still come through their imaginative, frequently astonishing manipulations of the narrative line. It's a rare kind of craftsmanship, and it produces a rare kind of pleasure. Read full review

Ruthless People is a hilariously venal comedy about a kidnapped harridan whose rich husband won’t pay for her return. Read full review

So much of Ruthless People goes so far that maybe it was inevitable that the film makers would pull up short and make this half-sappy compromise--cynicism with a smile--as compensation for their previous audacity. A pity. A lot of the rest gives you something better: full-bore, shameless, gut-clutching laughter. Read full review

THE most irresistible thing about the characters in Ruthless People, a conspicuously overconsuming, Beverly Hills update of O. Henry's classic Ransom of Red Chief, is that they all try with such earnestness to live up to their ruthless reputations. It also has a uniformly splendid cast of comic actors - the best to be seen outside of any recent Blake Edwards movie. Its screenplay, by the newcomer Dale Launer, is packed with wonderfully vulgar, tasteless lines that perfectly reflect the sensibilities of Sam and Barbara Stone. Read full review

Everyone in the movie seems to have a comic moment, because the laughs are piled on top of each other. Call it rude, crude, and lewd, but you also have to call it very funny. Read full review

Cheesy low farce, with Danny DeVito as a thieving millionaire who wants to kill his heiress wife (Bette Miler) and is overjoyed when she's kidnapped.