Ruthless People (Comedy,Crime)

Sam Stone's wife has just been kidnapped... And he doesn't want her back!
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Sam Stone is a clothing manufacturer, who married his wife Barbara, for the money that she was suppose to inherit from her dying father, but her father didn't die for another fifteen years. He is now planning to kill her and is on his way home to do just that but when he gets there, she's not there. He then receives a call from someone claiming to have kidnapped Barbara and threatening to kill her if he informs the police, which he does hoping that they do. What Stone doesn't know is that the kidnappers, Ken and Sandy are a couple whose idea for a garment he stole and made fortune off, are not that lethal, as a matter of fact Barbara's more lethal. And what Stone doesn't know is that his girlfriend, Carol, has another boyfriend and they plan to blackmail Sam, by videotaping him disposing of Barbara's body. When her boyfriend, Earl goes there to do that, the person who goes there was not Sam but a guy with a hooker, and the guy instructs the hooker to scream her head off, Earl mistakenly believes that Barbara's not dead and that Sam was killing her there, and was so freaked out that he didn't bother to see if it was Sam. And Carol tries to put her plan in operation by sending Sam a copy of the tape, Sam thinks that it's for something kinky that Carol wants and when Sam tells her that he is going to do what was done on the tape to her, she assumes that he is going to kill her. So she sends another copy of the tape to the Chief of Police, and tells him that she wants him to arrest Sam for murdering Barbara, and the Chief is happy to oblige cause he is the guy who is on the tape. The Chief manages to find the instruments that Sam was going to use to kill Barbara and arrests him. Sam now has to get Barbara, alive, so that he can prove that he didn't kill her. And Barbara starts to bond with Sandy.
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It is so hard to play a lovable villain, and Danny DeVito does it so easily. His eyes narrow, his voice deepens, and he speaks with great earnestness and sincerity about his selfish schemes and vile designs."Ruthless People" opens as DeVito is having lunch with his mistress, and we can see that this is a man filled with passion. In this case, the passion is hatred for his wife and for all that she stands for, and for all that her rich father stands for, and even for all that her poodle stands for.DeVito is the mainspring of "Ruthless People," the engine of murderous intensity right at the center. His passion is so palpable that it adds weight to all the other performances in the movie. If we can believe he really wants to kill his wife, then we can believe he would not pay the ransom if she were kidnapped, which is the movie's comic premise.It is, indeed, a pleasure to watch his face as he receives the first call from the kidnappers and they threaten to kill his wife if he doesn't follow every single one of their instructions to the letter.As he agrees to their stipulations, one after another, a wonderous calm spreads over his face, and the scene builds to a perfect climax.The wife is played by Bette Midler, who makes her first entrance kicking and screaming inside a burlap bag. She has been kidnapped by Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater, who want to get even with DeVito, a clothing manufacturer who has ripped off their designs. It's a juicy role for Midler, a first cousin to the airhead housewife she played in "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," and she milks it for all it's worth, turning into an exercise freak while being held captive in a basement.The movie doesn't depend on just the one inspiration - the husband who doesn't want to ransom his wife. It has lots of other ideas and characters that fit together like a clockwork mechanism. We have the mistress (Anita Morris) and her boyfriend (Bill Pullman), who is not playing with a full deck. And then there are the police chief (William G. Schilling), who backs himself into an embarrassing situation, and a mad slasher (J.E. Freeman), who picks the wrong victim when he comes after Midler.The movie is slapstick with a deft character touch here and there. It's hard to keep all the characters and plot lines alive at once, but "Ruthless People" does it, and at the end I felt grateful for its goofiness.The discovery in the movie is DeVito. After seeing him on television's "Taxi" and here and there in character roles, I first began to notice how good he was in "Romancing the Stone." Then came his great performance in "Wise Guys," opposite Joe Piscopo, and now this second virtuoso performance in a row.He is, of course, very short, but there's a funny thing about his stature: It seems to be a fact of his body, not his mind or personality. In closeups and whenever he speaks, he has so much force that he can easily command his scenes. He never seems to be compensating; he seems to be holding back. Like British actor Bob Hoskins, who also is shorter than most of the people in most of his scenes, he has a way of making the taller people around him seem unsure of what to do with their legs.DeVito is a great joy to watch in this movie, as the turns of the plot catch him in one dilemma and then another. First he wants the kidnappers to kill his wife. Then, when he is charged with faking her kidnapping, he wants to ransom her. All along, there's a running gag as he negotiates the ransom price, and Midler has a great moment when she learns that her husband is trying to buy her back - at a discount."Ruthless People" is made out of good performances, a script of diabolical ingenuity and a whole lot of silliness.Download here