Throw mom off the train!

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Movie
German title Throw mom off the train!
Original title Throw Momma from the Train
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1987
length 88 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Danny DeVito
script Stu Silver
production Larry Brezner
music David Newman
camera Barry Sonnenfeld
cut Michael Jablow
occupation

Throw mom off the train! (Original title: Throw Momma from the Train ) is an American comedy film from 1987. Directed by Danny DeVito , who also played a leading role.

The plot refers to the 1951 Hitchcock film The Stranger on the Train .

action

The hobby author Owen Lift attends Larry Donner's writing classes and still lives with his mother, who terrorizes him. He often imagines killing her, but in the end he doesn't dare to do it. And so he seeks refuge in writing. When Owen then asks his teacher Larry for advice on a good story, he advises him to watch a Hitchcock film for inspiration. So Owen looks at The Stranger on the Train and thinks Larry was trying to get him a hidden message. The film is about two men exchanging two murders, so to speak, so that no connection can be established between them and the corresponding murders and they each have an alibi for "their" murder. Owen now believes Larry wants him to kill his wife, whom he hates for stealing his book, which later became a bestseller - and that he would kill his mother for it.

So Owen is planning the murder of Larry's ex-wife Margaret. This later disappears without a trace during a cruise, whereupon investigations begin. Owen goes to Larry and demands that Larry kill his mother in return, but he is appalled by the misunderstanding and cannot believe that his ex-wife should be dead. Because he doesn't even have an alibi and would be the main suspect, he looks to Owen for protection from the police who want to question him about his ex-wife, and so the two even become friends over time. This eventually leads to the fact that Larry agrees to kill Owen's mother because he is just as appalled by her as Owen himself. However, Owen changes his mind and he can stop Larry from murdering.

In fact, Owen's mother died of natural causes shortly thereafter. Larry processes all the intricacies in a book that becomes a bestseller. As it turns out, his wife isn't dead at all, she just accidentally fell overboard. Despite, or perhaps because of, the events, Owen and Larry remain good friends.

Reviews

  • Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times on December 11, 1987 that the film focused predominantly on the relationship between Larry and Owen. The comedy is not as funny as it could be. This could be due to superfluous elements of the overloaded plot. Owen's mother is shown overdrawn as a monster. With a more complex relationship between Owen and his mother, additional gags would have been possible. Billy Crystal also does not exhaust his acting possibilities.
  • Rita Kempley described the film in the Washington Post on December 12, 1987 as "embarrassing".
  • The lexicon of international film finds the film “appropriate to the type”, but with increasing duration it suffers from “lack of ideas”.

Awards

Anne Ramsey was nominated for an Oscar in 1988 for Best Supporting Actress . It won the Saturn Award in 1988 and was also nominated for a Golden Globe .

Danny DeVito was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance. David Newman won the BMI Film Music Award in 1988 .

background

The film was shot in California and Hawaii . It grossed a total of $ 57.9 million in US theaters.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Review by Roger Ebert .
  2. ^ Critique by Rita Kempley .
  3. ↑ Throw mom off the train! In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ locations
  5. ↑ gross profit