Review of Raising Arizona (1987) by Tim W — 06 Jun 2010

Raising Arizona is one of those movies you hear about from a bunch of different friends as a legendary illusive movie. It rolls in the same crowd as The Big Lebowsky. That kind of movie that requires a heightened appreciation for cinema and will open your mind to art. Guess I'm just a heathen.

The movie opens up with H.I. (Nicolas Cage) rolling in and out of prison. He's a simple thief who's just born to be an outlaw, but one who's likeable because he rides into the jail like a white knight ready to whisk away the straight forward and loud police woman Edwina, "Ed" (Holly Hunter).

HI and Ed end up getting married, try to have kids, and find out they can't. They read about the Arizonas, a rich couple who had fertility problems so they took some pills and got 4. So why not steal one?

The plot of the movie is fine. My problems are entirely in the art direction of the film and the use of dialogue. Let's focus on the style first. The movie jumps from scene to scene as if it's all a dream. Example: HI just robbed a convenient store and is running from the cops, going through houses, and eventually ending up in a grocery store, all the while bullets are blowing up Huggies. Nic Cage runs from aisle to aisle in that over exaggerated swing of his arms, doing the "I ran too far" skid to a stop... it was quirky to the point of distracting, and a movie should never distract you from itself.

Then there's the dialogue. I get it, they're crooks and it's awkward and craaaaazy that they should speak with sophistication and poise. And I could roll with that if it was just HI, who narrates the movie with the voice of a literature Professor. But it's everyone. It's the evil twin of Tarantino dialogue. That fine line you can walk where your characters speak above the norm. In Pulp Fiction, it works because people have actually had those kind of Cheeseburger conversations with a friend... maybe not often, but it's happened. But the dialogue in Raising Arizona, it just doesn't work. I understand the juxtaposition of how the cons all speak with an air of eloquence, and the more well off individuals speak like yokels. I get it. Problem is it's a transparent frying pan that hits you over the head, and you have no idea why it's even in the movie.

One of my main points of criteria for a movie is that it doesn't force you to realize you're watching a movie... it doesn't snap you out of watching and enjoying to stop and question that something just happened. Great movies cause you to reflect afterwards, or even internally refelect during the movie... but it doesn't snap you out of it and make you think "why are they talking like that?" Fight Club is a great instance of this... you are questioning the movie the whole time, but you aren't snapping out of the movie and saying "well that's crazy, why would men want to throw it all away just to punch each other?".

I debated whether or not I'd give Raising Arizona a Rotten or Fresh rating. I decided to end up with Fresh because I see the merits of the movie. It wasn't a bad movie. The acting was actually good, just annoying. As Herbert McDunnough so eloquently put, "I didn't know if it was dream or vision.".