Raising Arizona - A Movie Review

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"Raising Arizona" is a crime comedy which was released in 1987. The movie was met with mixed reviews but did fairly well at the box office with a budget of approximately $6 million and box office receipts of $29.2 million. It's 31st on the "American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Laughs" list and 45th on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" list. CAST Nicolas Cage - Herbert I. "Hi" McDunnough Holly Hunter - Edwina "Ed" McDunnough Trey Wilson - Nathan Arizona, Sr. John Goodman - Gale Snoats William Forsythe - Evelle Snoats Sam McMurray - Glen Frances McDormand - Dot Randall "Tex" Cobb - Leonard Smalls Rusty Lee - Heyseed Herbert "Hi" McDunnough lives in the Arizona suburbs and has a penchant for robbing convenience stores. He always gets paroled because he never uses live ammunition in his robberies. Each time he is booked, a young policewoman named Edwina, "Ed", takes his photo. Hi flirts with her until one day when he sees her crying. Hi learns that her fiance ran off with a cosmetology student. Hi says that her fiance made a big mistake. A romance blooms; and once Hi is free again, he proposes to Ed. Hi and Ed live in a trailer in the Arizona desert. Hi gets a job as a machinist and welder. They decide that they want to have a child; but Ed is infertile; and they can't adopt because of Hi's criminal background. Devastated, Ed quits her job. A story appears in the newspaper telling about the birth of the quintuplet sons born to furniture magnate, Nathan Arizona, and his wife, Florence. Hi and Ed figure that the Arizonas have "more than they can handle" and plan on kidnapping one of the babies. If you want to find out what happens next, you will need to watch the movie. Some critics did not like this movie. They felt there was a contrived way of speaking; and the situations were more fantasy than reality and exaggerated. Well, in my opinion, that's what makes the movie funny. I think it was all done deliberately. For this reason, I recommend this movie. This movie is rated PG-13. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons (Nicolas Cage)