Rat Race 2001 By Rancosto on Dec 21, 2007 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

An eccentric Las Vegas casino owner decides to organize a very special game for his richest clients. Nine people are randomly picked out of slot-machine players and given a key of a locker at a New Mexico train station where 2 million dollars are kept. Whoever reaches the locker first takes the cash... Greed takes over, and nine decent people turn into lying, stealing, car-wrecking "rats" racing for the treasure - much to the delight of the rich casino clients who wager on them.

Rat Race has been compared to It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World many times; it has a similar treasure-hunting plot and a bunch of folks losing decency, crazed by the smell of money. However, Rat Race is a child of its era, boasting bathroom humor and less than appropriate jokes that would have never been allowed on screen at the time when Mad World was made. I checked out this movie mostly because of Rowan Atkinson who plays a narcoleptic Italian tourist here; Atkinson was okay, although not so hilarious as in his other films. Whoopi Goldberg and Cuba Gooding Jr. deliver some funny scenes; most of the slapstick gags are funny as well. Overall, I would say the movie is worth renting out.