There was a time, many many years ago, before National Treasure, Ghostrider and Bangkok Dangerous, that Nicholas Cage was in the greatest movie of all time. That movie, was Raising Arizona. If you haven't seen it, please start a Netflix account right now and queue up 4 movies and watch in this order:

1st - National Treasure (wow, did I just sit through that?)
2nd - Ghostrider (wow, someone in Hollywood funded this?)
3rd - Bangkok Dangerous (wow, this is on DVD already? I saw it just opened last week in the theater???)

at this point, you are going to want to jump out of a window, but before you do, there is 1 more movie you have to watch......

4th - Raising Arizona (my god, this is the greatest movie of all time!!!!)


You have now seen the greatest movie of all time, and will forget that Gone in Sixty Seconds, Lord of War, Next, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Face Off, The Rock, and Con Air was ever even made.

The Coen Brothers' Oscar-winning triumph for "No Country for Old Men" seemed to me as much recognition of two decades of excellent, if quirky, filmmaking as it was celebration of that specific film masterpiece. Their films defy categorization, although I think it is safe to say that most of the films lean more towards "comedy" or "drama". One of their trademarks is adding humor to their dramas, and few comedies come with darker moments than theirs. For me, "Raising Arizona" represents their best and most outrageous comedy, and since their list of comedies includes "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", "The Big Lebowski" and "Burn After Reading", that's saying something.

Nicolas Cage leads as a dim but good-hearted small time convenience store robber named H.I. McDunnough. Holly Hunter plays Edwina, a policewoman who meets H.I. over and over again, taking the booking photographs and fingerprints of repeat offender H.I. in the brilliant prologue.

Robber H.I. and cop Ed marry and set up homestead in a trailer "on the outskirts of Tempe" (when establishing shots show they are out in the western desert, far from any sign of civilization.) But Edwina's insides are "a rocky place" where H.I.'s "seed could find no purchase" so they are left childless.

While Ed is going through the heartbreak of infertility quintuplets are born to the King of Unfinished Furniture, Nathan Arizona, and his wife Florence. Trey Wilson gives an absolutely brilliant performance as the blustering, tough-talking furniture man.

In a stretch of logic common in Coen movies, H.I. and Ed decide that the Arizonas have more offspring than they need or can handle, so since they are childless it is acceptable to take one of them.

The rest of the film deals more or less with Hi and Ed's attempts to achieve domestic tranquility with little Nathan, Junior, while a manhunt is initiated to recover the high-profile infant.

Along the way we meet a pair of brothers, Hi's friends from prison, and recently broken out of said prison in a scene that is both hilarious and epic at the same time. This was the first film role that I remember seeing John Goodman, and he is a presence as Gale Snoats. Brother Evelle is played by an early William Forsyth, who tells Edwina that they haven't broken out of prison, they've "released themselves on their own recognizance." Goodman adds "we felt that the institution no longer had anything to offer us."

Former boxer Randall "Tex" Cobb adds a surreal touch as a shotgun-toting, harley-riding, cigar-smoking, rabbit hand-grenading, post-apocalyptic bounty hunter, Leonard Smalls, who offers to recover Nathan Junior for the Arizonas, but only for twice the $25,000 reward. Smalls, who is later called a "Warthog from Hell" by Edwina, is after all only a capitalist and he informs Nathan Arizona that he knows plenty of people willing to pay more than $25,000 for a healthy baby. You don't doubt that he does.

The soundtrack is Coen Brothers perfect and features a flailed banjo which is accompanied by yodeling and occasionally breaks into Beethoven's "Ode to Joy". Did I mention their movies are quirky?

It would be difficult to say which is quirkier, the Coen's hilariously surreal dialogue or the unbelievable plot, but both are part of the joy of this film.

H.I.'s boss Glenn (played by Sam McMurray) and Glenn's wife Dot (played by Academy Award winner Frances McDormand, Mrs. Joel Coen) show up so that Dot can work Edwina into a maternal frenzy over little Junior and whether or not he has been vaccinated with his Dip-Tet. Glenn meanwhile suggests wife-swapping to H.I. who responds by cold-cocking Glenn. Glenn fires H.I. who is tempted to return to his previous life of crime.

Later the Snoats brothers bust in on a hayseed bank and order everyone to "freeze" and "get down on the ground". All of the people raise their hands and turn silently towards the shot-gun wielding brothers. An old-timer asks "Well, which is it, young feller? You want I should freeze or get down on the ground? Mean to say, if'n I freeze, I can't rightly drop. And if'n I drop, I'm a-gonna be in motion. You see..."

Coen Brothers movies are full of moments like this, and Raising Arizona has more funny moments than any of their others, if'n you ask me.

The first 30 minutes are funny and enjoyable mostly due to tickling and witty dialogues. The rest is boring.

**** SPOILER. DO NOT READ this if you HAVE NOT WATCHED the MOVIE ****

The film goes south when the two friends of Nicolas escaped from the prison and visited him in his home. Since then, there are only a couples of
hilarious scenes. One is where the boss suggested wife-swapping. The other is when the kids of his boss wrecked his home.

It gets worse when the bounty hunter started to track Nicolas down. The imagination is so wild that it's not interesting any more.

Anybody who is expecting a child or wants to have one should watch this. It realistically and funnily portraits part of the difficulty of raising a child.