Review of Trading Places (1983) by James S — 01 Dec 2014

How '80s is Trading Places?

This is a film which literally could not have been made in any other decade. For a start it takes the decade staple of the bickering white and black guy duo and fuses it with the take of the Prince and the Pauper. It takes a satirical look at the yuppie greed of the decade in a slightly less violent fashion than American Psycho did and juxtaposes this with how poor some people really were at the time. Plus, it has Eddie Murphy, Dan Ackroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis' boobs......you can't get more 1980's than that!

Dan Ackroyd is the well do to stock broker who finds himself swapping lives with down and out Eddie Murphy as the play things of Mortimer and Randall Duke, two nasty pieces of work played very well by Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy. The little experiment leads Ackroyd to re-evaluate his life while Murphy grows a conscience.

Trading Places is a very entertaining film. It has a nicely solid story behind it which evolves into a neat little comedy thriller towards the end. I call it comedy thriller for want of a better description as perhaps where Trading Places falls down is that it isn't actually all that funny. Murphy has a few humourous moments when breaking the fourth wall, while Ackroyd mainly derides amusement from just what a simpering twit he is. Denholm Elliott as his butler Coleman gets the lion's share of comedy when on screen with some great facial expressions and Jamie Lee Curtis impresses in one of her first non-horror virgin roles.

It's the story and performances that keep Trading Places going. It does feel a little overlong for a comedy perhaps but it delivers the required feel good ending, and it still remains one of the '80s landmark movies in the genre, that didn't come from John Hughes.

It is a shame that there aren't more laughs really but Trading Places holds up to an enjoyable rewatch every now and again.