Rating: PG13
Genre:
Comedy
Theatrical Release: 03/11/1987(USA)
Release Date: 08/03/1999
SubTitles: English/Espanol
Dubbed: English/French
Sound: DD2
Run Time: 94 Minutes
Flags: Mild Violence, Adult Situations
Distributor/Studio: 20th Century Fox
Combining influences from
Tex Avery cartoons to
Sam Raimi horror movies to 1940s B-movies,
Joel Coen and
Ethan Coen followed up the stylish
film noir of their debut,
Blood Simple (1984), with this frantic
screwball comedy.
H.I. "Hi" McDonnough (
Nicholas Cage) is a philosophical but slightly dim career criminal who has been arrested so often that he gets to know "
Ed," short for
Edwina (
Holly Hunter), the officer who takes his mug shots.
Hi takes a shine to
Ed and promises to go straight if she marries him. She accepts, and they move to the
Arizona desert, where
Hi holds down a factory job and blissfully watches the sunsets with
Ed. Their serenity is shattered when the couple decides that they want a child and discover that, as
Hi puts it, "
Ed's womb was a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase." (One of the film's many delights is
Hi's unexpectedly flowery dime-novel narration.)
Ed goes into a severe depression until she sees an item in the news.
Nathan Arizona (
Trey Wilson), owner of a chain of unpainted furniture stores, has become the father of quintuplets, and he and his wife joke that they now have more children than they know what to do with. In what seems like a perfect "helps you, helps me" situation,
Hi and
Ed kidnap one of the Arizona infants, figuring that they'll have a baby and the Arizonas will have less of a burden.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
;)
