Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Ruthless People (1986)
Director: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
The Airplane team dusts off the old idea of kidnappers abducting someone so obnoxious that no one wants to know. Sleazy garment mogul DeVito is planning how to murder his wife Midler ('I had to live with that squealing, corpulent toad all these years'), when she is bundled away by two young innocents - Slater, designer of the Spandex miniskirt which DeVito stole, and Reinhold, a wimp who sells dodgy hi-fi. It is Midler who sets the tone of prurient sexual hatred, flaring her nostrils and threatening the couple with chainsaw enemas if they don't set her free. With everyone else also deep in sin and sexual blackmail, it's all going splendidly along its nasty route when, alas, the tone shifts three-quarters of the way in, and Midler acquires some of her captors' tedious niceness, conniving with them at the downfall of the baddies. A pity that the directors prove less ruthless than their own creations, but there is more than enough here for people who enjoy murder attempts on cute pet poodles. CPea.Author: CPea
Cast & crew
Director: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker
Producer: Michael Peyser
Cast: Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold, Helen Slater, Anita Morris, Bill Pullman, William G Schilling full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 94 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now