Few film makers have made me laugh as hard as those wacky Zucker Brothers. Airplane and The Naked Gun were comedy staples in the 80's. At some point, these rambunctious movie makers decided to go serious with pictures like Ghost and The First Knight. They also took part in the disastrous Basketball and have been absent from the big screen for quite some time. Now they return with the sporadically entertaining Rat Race.

In the tradition of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, The Great Race, and Cannonball Run, Rat Race is a humorous road trip picture in which a group of strangers travel from Las Vegas to New Mexico, competing for two million dollars in cash. The picture alternates between each character and the personal hell they go through to get to the prize money.

This picture features a huge cast including; Jon Lovitz, Seth Green, Amy Smart, Vince Vieluf, Whoopi Goldberg, Rowan Atkinson (who you may remember as Mr. Bean), Cuba Gooding Jr., Breckin Meyer, and Lanai Chapman. Of the entire cast, the most amusing notables are Atkinson as a narcoleptic Italian and John Cleese as a rich nut ball who likes to bet on just about anything. The rest of the cast plays it fairly straight while everything around them goes from crazy to downright out of control.

The Zuckers are merely directors here. They didn't write the screenplay and it does show. Rat Race lacks the consistency of their earlier comedies. Still, they do find time to throw in some of their trademark humor such as a sequence featuring a heart that may or may not make it to it's transplant recipient on time. This is an obvious ode to Airplane and brought back fond memories of the disaster spoof. Watch for a lot of terrific sight gags as well. Rat Race features a broad spectrum of comedy styles from physical to flat out crude. This picture does have it's unpredictable moments (the Hitler stuff is hilarious) but is all but ruined by a sappy ending that doesn't really seem to fit.

Rat Race moves at a brisk pace. And while there is a lot of funny stuff here, many of the jokes do falter. While I did catch myself laughing, I couldn't help but yearn for another Naked Gun picture (which probably won't happen with all the O.J. controversy). Rat Race is harmless enough. It's one grandiose and completely absurd situation after another. While I'd still put all my money on Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back for unlimited laughter, you could do a lot worse then the well intentioned Rat Race.