Review of Raising Arizona (1987) by Peter H — 17 Jun 2011

The Coen Brothers RAISING ARIZONA [1987]: After reviewing that "Wonderful" Sic-Fi Horror saga called SPECIES (Cough, trash! cough) out of my silly need to review something trashy from the wide world of Cult cinema. For my next review marathon I thought it was probably good for my mental health to look at something good for a change. Since I have recently been viewing a fair few films of the brotherly Duo Joel and Ethan Coen and since not having prior to this point not reviewing any of the Brothers work, well I thought why not write and post the reviews of seven various Coen films in one long week long review series. The idea is to start this Sunday and end this Saturday [NZT] by posting one review a day over this week so which film am I going to start with? How about their first film BLOOD SIMPLE [1984]? Nope I'm going to start this review marathon with their second film RAZING ARIZONA [1987] and ending the week with A SEROIUS MAN [2009].

Day One: RAISING ARIZONA [1987]: after the Coen's made their debut feature film with BLOOD SIMPLE [1984] for their second film the Coen's made this wacky, offbeat, eccentric, ultra-quirky and downright odd comedy titled RAZING ARIZONA. To some viewers would find this film to be odd while others would find it amusing, but for me RAZING ARIZONA is just a mildly amusing movie. So where can I go from here on that note? I found it ok and then what? Well I could always explain both my enjoyment and possible irritations with this film in the body of this review that will work with this early entry of the Coen's work starting with the plot line.

THE PLOTLINE.

When down and out convenience store robber H.I or Hi (Nicolas Cage) marries police photographer sweetheart Ed or Edwina their whirlwind romance and marriage suffer its greatest challenge. After wanting to conceive a child and learning that Ed is infertile and that the couple can't adopt a child the pair decide to kidnap one of the many Arizona baby's from the wealthy Nathan Arizona and his wife. The pair then try to raise the child as one of their own, but when a pair of H.I's old jailbird buddy's show up after getting bored of prison life, Ed gets irritated by their presences. As the search for the Arizona baby intensifies when a bizarre bounty hunter shows up, Ed and Hi must try to hold on to their last chance of being parents.

THE ACTING, DIRECTION AND CINEMA-PHOTOGRAPHY.

With the lead performance by Nic Cage as Hi is enjoyable to view even though he is playing a highly wacky role. The rest of the cast give some brilliant performances but my special mention has to go to John Goodman as one of H.I ex-convict buddy's. Goodman for some reason mildly amused me in this film especially when he starts to cry for some reason.

The direction from the Brothers is anything but average with this films odd and ultra-quirky and eccentric nature. As for the cinema-photography my god it was frustrating and it's not often I like to bag cinema-photography but this film takes the cake. The shots and zooms just got well over the top in parts and made it distracting to view some action scenes. But overall the point of the oddball camera work was meant to fit in with this films zaniness.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: RAISING ARIZONA isn't that great to say the least, although as a second feature for future great filmmakers is average. After all was the brother's first venture into the comedy genre and the duo were still fine tuning their comedic style but to be honest I didn't find this film to be funny. But I did find this film to be mildly amusing and an alright bit of cinematic entertainment, which is why in the first entry into my Coen bothers review series is being awarded with a rating of 60%.