Rat Race

In an ensemble film about easy money, greed, manipulation and bad driving, a Las Vegas casino tycoon entertains his wealthiest high rollers -- a group that will bet on anything -- by pitting six ordinary people against each other in a wild dash for $2 million jammed into a locker hundreds of miles away. The tycoon and his wealthy friends monitor each racer's every move to keep track of their favorites. The only rule in this race is that there are no rules.

Critics were split on whether Rat Race's relentless sight-gag approach ever adds up to more than the sum of its parts — most found it scattershot and only sporadically funny, though audiences warmed to it considerably more than reviewers did. The gap between the mixed critical reception and the solid audience response suggests the film plays better as a crowd-pleasing comedy than as a crafted piece of filmmaking.