The Great Race

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Basically a two-hour and fourty-five minute long Looney Tunes sketch performed in the live action format. If the prior sentence doesn't set off at least a few sets of alarm bells in your head, then I don't know what to tell you. Slapstick can be an effective tool, yes, but only when the characters, stakes & conflict in play are firm enough to support a genuine comedic reaction from the audience. It's also most prudently used in short form storytelling (i.e. cartoons, shorts, skits, etc.) for even the most successful of reactions to pratfalls or pies in the face are fleeting in comparison to how audiences typically process other narrative devices. It's hard to play the long con with this kind of humor. It's damn near IMPOSSIBLE to play the three-hour long con with this kind of humor. And "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World" this movie is not. I appreciate Blake Edwards's spirit in setting forth with this piece. The actors seem to be having a great time -- especially the late, great Jack Lemmon. The set pieces, though monotonous after a time, are put together coherently. But nearly every other element -- the narrative, the character work, the pacing -- is lacking. No one is interesting. Our protagonist is horrifically characterized, with almost little to no identifiers given to him other than "he's good" and "he wears white." Natalie Wood's character is so haphazardly constructed, reflecting an overall issue in the thematic content therein. What were they trying to get across? Egalitarianism is good? Bad? Inevitable? It's so confused and thrown together. There are entire sequences (oh, no, not scenes -- SEQUENCES) that can go. There's absolutely no reason this needed to be this long. "The Great Race" is easily one of the more difficult watches I've had to endure as of late.