The Big White - Always Trouble with Raymond

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Movie
German title The Big White - Always Trouble with Raymond
(Alternative title: Morden also needs to be learned)
Original title The Big White
Country of production USA , UK , Germany
original language English
Publishing year 2005
length 100 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Mark Mylod
script Collin Friesen
production Christopher Eberts
David Faigenblum
Chris Roberts
music Mark Mothersbaugh
camera James Glennon
cut Julie Monroe
occupation

The Big White is a 2005 comedy film with black humor and starring Robin Williams and Holly Hunter .

action

Paul Barnell owns a small travel agency in an unspecified small town in Alaska . He's as good as bankrupt. His wife Margaret suffers from Tourette's syndrome , but Paul cannot afford to treat it. In order to raise the money needed for the treatment, Paul tries to get the life insurance of his brother Raymond, who disappeared a few years ago, to be paid out. The insurance company requires proof of Raymond's death, which Paul cannot show, as the period has not yet passed after which a missing person in the state of Alaska can be declared dead at the earliest. A short time later, by chance, Paul finds an unknown corpse in a dumpster and, in his need, decides to spend it on his dead brother Raymond. He arranges everything as if Raymond had suddenly reappeared, only to have an accident shortly after on a hike through the lonely expanses of Alaska and to be so beaten up by wild animals that he can only use a credit card, which Paul orders under Raymond's name and had attached the body to be identified. The plan seems to work at first, after which the body is buried under Raymond's name. But then the insurance employee Ted first doubts the story, so he does everything in his power to expose Paul as an insurance fraud in order to get his long-awaited promotion.

When two killers unexpectedly appear, Paul has a second problem. Because they are looking for the corpse they had previously removed, which Paul removed from the dumpster. The killers then kidnap Paul's wife Margaret in order to force him to retrieve the body, which has already been buried, and exchange it for his wife. Meanwhile, Paul learns that he will receive the premium from his brother's life insurance policy. Completely unexpectedly, Paul's brother Raymond, who had learned of his own alleged death from a weekly magazine, actually reappears a short time later after he had been missing for years. After a heated argument and a fight, Raymond demands part of the insurance from Paul in return for his silence. In order not to let the whole fraud caused by Raymond's reckless lifestyle explode, Paul decides to kill his brother while he sleeps at night, but does not have the heart to do so. Instead, Paul secretly leaves the hut early in the morning to cash out the money and meet with the killers.

In order to get his wife back, he had the already buried body secretly dug up again the evening before by two construction workers in exchange for a small courtesy payment and arranged a meeting with the killers in a deserted snowy landscape in order to exchange the body for his wife and then meet with her and depreciate the money. The insurance clerk Ted also learns about this meeting by chance and decides to watch it in order to finally be able to expose Paul as an insurance fraud. Paul's brother Raymond also learns of the meeting and angrily drives to the meeting point to shoot Paul, because he feels exploited and betrayed by him. Instead, he fires a bullet out of a short-circuit act at Margaret running away. This goes to the ground, whereupon Paul runs to her and on arrival notices that the bullet was stopped by one of the many bundles of money that Paul had previously sewn secretly into Margaret's jacket and could not injure Margaret. At the same moment, Raymond is accidentally shot by one of them during an argument with the two killers. Paul goes back to his wounded brother and can briefly talk to him one last time before he dies. The killers panic and drive away. The attending insurance employee Ted, because he feels sorry for Paul and Margaret, then waives a report of the actual facts to his insurance company and lets them both go with the money.

In the last scene of the film you can see how the two killers, out of a sense of personal duty, have the unknown and Raymond's corpses buried by the two construction workers right next to each other.

backgrounds

The title of this black comedy refers to films in the tradition of The Big Trail (1930) and The Big Sky (1952), which tell of the western expansion of settlers of European descent in America in the 19th century. The subtitle Immer Ärger mit Raymond in the German version alludes to the black comedies Immer Ärger mit Harry (1955) and Immer Ärger mit Bernie (1989).

Filming began in April 2004 at White Pass in the northern Canadian Yukon region , later recordings were made in Whitehorse . The shooting conditions for director Mark Mylod ( Ali G in da House ) and the actors were anything but easy: Since there was no overnight accommodation, the crew drove 60 miles a day to the small town of Skagway , which in winter can only be accessed by boat or plane is to achieve.

Robin Williams' dubbing voice is usually spoken by German actor Peer Augustinski . Due to illness he was not available for the work, instead Williams was dubbed by the actor Bodo Wolf (voice actor ) .

Reviews

The film received mostly negative reviews, earning a 30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 10 reviews. At Metacritic a Metascore of 31, based on 4 reviews, could be achieved. However, the film received a positive rating of 6.5 at IMDb (as of January 2015).

"Perfectly timed black comedy in which the ambivalently drawn weird characters ensure macabre comedy by trying to be serious."

- Lexicon of international film

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for The Big White - Always Trouble with Raymond . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2006 (PDF; test number: 105 781 K).
  2. ↑ The Big White - Always Trouble with Raymond at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
  3. ↑ The Big White - Always Trouble with Raymond at Metacritic (English)
  4. ↑ The Big White - Trouble with Raymond in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  5. ↑ The Big White - Always Trouble with Raymond. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed May 4, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used