June 30, 1986 | Ruthless People is relentlessly funny. A cheery celebration of vulgarity and avarice, it is a rude, crude comedy of bad manners that never lets good taste get in the way of a big laugh. This is not genteel stuff — at times, even the cinematography appears coarse. And many of the best lines will have bluenoses seeing red. But if you have a taste for low comedy of the highest order, here’s a movie that will more than satisfy your appetite.
Danny DeVito, a comic actor who has no equal when it comes to playing sleazy sneaks, is at the top of his form as the glowering Sam Stone, a sportswear tycoon who takes inordinate pride in being known as “The Spandex Miniskirt King.” Stone is a real sweetheart — when we first see him, he’s plotting the murder of his heiress wife, Barbara (Bette Midler), whom he lovingly describes as ‘‘that squealy, corpulent little toad.’’ Later, when he finds Barbara has been kidnapped, he views the crime as the ultimate in labor-saving devices. He won’t have to sully his hands with her blood — he’ll simply refuse to pay the ransom, and let the kidnappers kill her.
Trouble is, her kidnappers are a pair of soggy milquetoasts, not hard-boiled criminals. Ken and Sandy Kessler snatch Barbara in the first place only because Sam has stolen Sandy’s fashion design. (Yes, it’s true: Sam is merely a pretender to the Spandex Miniskirt King throne.) But Barbara is such an obnoxious, overbearing shrew that Tom is willing to drop his ransom demands just to get rid of her. Unfortunately, he cannot even give her away.
Cleverly written by Dale Launer, Ruthless People is a modern-day reworking of O. Henry’s The Ransom of Red Chief with just a touch of The Postman Always Rings Twice thrown in for good measure. The Stones are such thoroughgoing rotters that poor Ken and Sandy, played with engaging ingenuousness by Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater, almost seem heroic by comparison. Sam’s the kind of guy who would command an attack dog to eat his wife’s bothersome poodle. Barbara’s the sort of woman whose snarling and shrieking could turn St. Francis of Assisi against her. In contrast, the Kesslers are pleasant hosts — just before they grab Barbara, they repaint the room where she’ll be held captive.
Sure, they’re kidnappers. But so what? They’re not as devious or mean-spirited as Sam’s buxom mistress, Carol (Anita Morris), a would-be blackmailer who’s two-timing Sam with a handsome but half-witted stud (Bill Pullman). More important, Ken Kessler turns out to be smarter than just about everyone else in the movie, despite his seeming klutziness. Not greedier, mind you, or even more ruthless. But much, much smarter.
Directors Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, the same men responsible for the surreal zaniness of Airplane! and Top Secret, have taken a slightly less frenetic approach to Ruthless People. Working within the restraints of logic, continuity and the laws of gravity, they nevertheless manage to keep the gags flowing at a swift and steady pace. And if you look closely enough, you’ll get the occasional glimpse of a loony non sequitur that is typical of their more outlandish work.
Bette Midler is ferociously funny, even after her character is slightly softened by the knowledge of her husband’s duplicity. Anita Morris does a very amusing turn as Carol, infusing Sam’s mistress with the insistent and well-rehearsed allure of a veteran stripper. And Bill Pullman, a New York stage actor making his motion picture debut, makes Earl, Carol’s lover, a paradigm of self-assured stupidity.
Ruthless People has some other fine actors in supporting roles — Art Evans and Clarence Felder as plodding policemen, William G. Schilling as a frantic police commissioner — and more inspired inventiveness than you’ll likely find in any other comedy this summer. (Even the opening credits are something special.) But the movie’s most important asset, first and last, is Danny DeVito. When it comes to conveying sheer loathsomeness at its most transparently oily and self-servingly cunning, DeVito makes J.R. Ewing look like Mister Rogers. As Sam Stone, he’s at his best. Which means, of course, he’s at his all-time worst.
