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#738 - Trading Places
John Landis, 1983
A pair of stock-market tycoons make a wager that involves taking one of their more affluent subordinates and secretly forcing him to "swap lives" with a small-time con artist.
Despite the fact that I've been citing The Blues Brothers as my favourite film for a very long time, I haven't really thought all that much of John Landis' other films, even though they tend to be theoretically sound propositions as far as comedies go. That's not to say I don't enjoy them, but there's always the nagging feeling that I should enjoy them more. Trading Places is a more significant example than most as it attempts to update the sensibilities of old screwball comedies for the more jaded and over-stimulated 1980s. The premise is simple enough as it has two old-money brothers (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy) decide to hold a little bet with one another due to their difference of opinion over the nature of success, specifically how much of an individual's good fortune can be credited to a nature-versus-nurture dichotomy. To this end, they launch a social experiment on two separate fronts. First, they take one of their most successful employees (Dan Aykroyd) and set up a series of unfortunate events that lead to Aykroyd losing everything dear to him - his job, his home, his fiancée, and so forth. Second, they take a lower-class conman (Eddie Murphy) and grant him all the same upper-class privileges that had once been afforded to Aykroyd, and so the games begin...
While Trading Places isn't terrible by any means, there's not a whole lot that makes it earn its status as a classic comedy either. Aykroyd and Murphy make for an ideal odd-couple as an upper-class twit and lower-class hustler respectively, though neither the former's talkative neurosis or the latter's cheeky one-liners yield that much in the way of impressive comedic moments. I'd say that Murphy fares better as the more obviously comical lead who gets some good jokes in as a rough-edged rogue, while Aykroyd does seem to be playing into some serious typecasting as yet another verbose fusspot that lacks serious distinction. Old-school performers do well enough in straightforward roles, whether it's Ameche and Bellamy as two ideologically different but fundamentally identical rich villains or Denholm Elliott as Aykroyd's (and later Murphy's) affable yet long-suffering butler. Other significant supporting roles include Jamie Lee Curtis as the smart-mouthed sex worker who gets roped into the shenanigans or go-to '80s love-to-hate guy Paul Gleason as the wealthy brothers' fixer. Curtis brings a bit of snarky definition to an otherwise stock-standard character, while Gleason channels his trademark dickishness as a callous enforcer who also happens to get the best line in the film. Not every part works - something as small as Jim Belushi's extended cameo as a raucous partygoer threatens to stop the film dead despite an extremely limited amount of screen-time.
Even though Trading Places has some similarities to old screwball comedies, it certainly lacks the quick pacing that characterised a lot of the best examples of such an old genre. In trying to keep both leads sympathetic, it ultimately neuters a lot of the potential humour; Aykroyd's status as an obliviously privileged individual (as evidenced by his over-reacting to an accidental collision with Murphy early in the film) doesn't quite go far enough to make his many humiliations seem genuinely humourous. At least Murphy's side of the story is handled a little better as his perpetually-impoverished character not only handles his riches well but also grows disillusioned with his old life pretty quickly, but that still doesn't result in a lot of chuckles. The film's relatively long running time works against it as it not only drags out the respective rise and fall of Murphy and Aykroyd but also drags out its conclusion; the entire train sequence already feels like the kind of climax that should end the film, which makes the film's falling action involving the stock market feel awfully tacked on even in this somewhat bloated film. Trading Places is not without a certain ineffable charm but as far as comedies go it lacks a lot of big laughs and only seems to provide the occasional moment of cleverness. I guess it's a testament to Landis' talent that he's capable of making films that still feel enjoyable even when they're not.
John Landis, 1983
A pair of stock-market tycoons make a wager that involves taking one of their more affluent subordinates and secretly forcing him to "swap lives" with a small-time con artist.
Despite the fact that I've been citing The Blues Brothers as my favourite film for a very long time, I haven't really thought all that much of John Landis' other films, even though they tend to be theoretically sound propositions as far as comedies go. That's not to say I don't enjoy them, but there's always the nagging feeling that I should enjoy them more. Trading Places is a more significant example than most as it attempts to update the sensibilities of old screwball comedies for the more jaded and over-stimulated 1980s. The premise is simple enough as it has two old-money brothers (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy) decide to hold a little bet with one another due to their difference of opinion over the nature of success, specifically how much of an individual's good fortune can be credited to a nature-versus-nurture dichotomy. To this end, they launch a social experiment on two separate fronts. First, they take one of their most successful employees (Dan Aykroyd) and set up a series of unfortunate events that lead to Aykroyd losing everything dear to him - his job, his home, his fiancée, and so forth. Second, they take a lower-class conman (Eddie Murphy) and grant him all the same upper-class privileges that had once been afforded to Aykroyd, and so the games begin...
While Trading Places isn't terrible by any means, there's not a whole lot that makes it earn its status as a classic comedy either. Aykroyd and Murphy make for an ideal odd-couple as an upper-class twit and lower-class hustler respectively, though neither the former's talkative neurosis or the latter's cheeky one-liners yield that much in the way of impressive comedic moments. I'd say that Murphy fares better as the more obviously comical lead who gets some good jokes in as a rough-edged rogue, while Aykroyd does seem to be playing into some serious typecasting as yet another verbose fusspot that lacks serious distinction. Old-school performers do well enough in straightforward roles, whether it's Ameche and Bellamy as two ideologically different but fundamentally identical rich villains or Denholm Elliott as Aykroyd's (and later Murphy's) affable yet long-suffering butler. Other significant supporting roles include Jamie Lee Curtis as the smart-mouthed sex worker who gets roped into the shenanigans or go-to '80s love-to-hate guy Paul Gleason as the wealthy brothers' fixer. Curtis brings a bit of snarky definition to an otherwise stock-standard character, while Gleason channels his trademark dickishness as a callous enforcer who also happens to get the best line in the film. Not every part works - something as small as Jim Belushi's extended cameo as a raucous partygoer threatens to stop the film dead despite an extremely limited amount of screen-time.
Even though Trading Places has some similarities to old screwball comedies, it certainly lacks the quick pacing that characterised a lot of the best examples of such an old genre. In trying to keep both leads sympathetic, it ultimately neuters a lot of the potential humour; Aykroyd's status as an obliviously privileged individual (as evidenced by his over-reacting to an accidental collision with Murphy early in the film) doesn't quite go far enough to make his many humiliations seem genuinely humourous. At least Murphy's side of the story is handled a little better as his perpetually-impoverished character not only handles his riches well but also grows disillusioned with his old life pretty quickly, but that still doesn't result in a lot of chuckles. The film's relatively long running time works against it as it not only drags out the respective rise and fall of Murphy and Aykroyd but also drags out its conclusion; the entire train sequence already feels like the kind of climax that should end the film, which makes the film's falling action involving the stock market feel awfully tacked on even in this somewhat bloated film. Trading Places is not without a certain ineffable charm but as far as comedies go it lacks a lot of big laughs and only seems to provide the occasional moment of cleverness. I guess it's a testament to Landis' talent that he's capable of making films that still feel enjoyable even when they're not.