| Comedy | MPAA:R |
What would happen if you took a rich yuppie and deprived him of his gold card? What if you took his gold card and gave it to a slimy street hustler and told him to have fun? You'd end up with a silly movie called Trading Places.
Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Ackroyd) is the yuppie in question. He is the managing director of the brokerage firm owned by Mortimer and Randolph Duke (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy). He has a fine townhouse, a Mercedes limo, fancy clothes, and a butler/chauffeur named Coleman (Denholm Elliot) to take care of him and his stuff. He has a fine fiance named Penelope (Kristin Holby) who is not only beautiful, but happens to be the grand-niece of Mortimer and Randolph. Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) is the aforementioned slimy street hustler. He's the kind of guy who makes Newt Gin-grinch and his followers yell 'See, I told you them folks were bad!!!' He meets Louis when they run into each other as Louis is leaving 'The Club'. Louis had just taken the payroll checks in to Mortimer and Randolph to sign, and when Billy Ray bumps into him, Louis panics, thinking that Billy Ray is trying to rob him. The cops are there right away (like they always are for rich people it seems) and haul Billy Ray off to jail. This gets Mortimer and Randolph to thinking - they had been discussing the relative merits of genetics and environment on a person's development, and they decide to make a bet on it. They use an outside security specialist, Clarence Beakes (Paul Gleason - who was the vice-principal in The Breakfast Club, and the crooked campaign manager in Morgan Stewart's Coming Home) to set Louis up. First they frame him on a theft charge, and plant PCP (angel dust) on him when the cops come to arrest him. When Penelope comes to bail him out, Beakes pays a prostitute (Jamie Lee Curtis) to go up to him and treat him as if he were her drug dealer and lover. So, in one swell foop, Louis loses his job, his friends, his fiance, his respectability, his freedom, and very shortly, all of his money. He talks the hooker into helping him out, after all, she got him into some of the mess he was in. She takes pity on him, and tells him that she'll help him out, but he's going to have to pay her back - big. Her name is Ophelia, she has $42,000 in T-Bills, earning interest, and that after three more years 'on her back' she plans on retiring some place nice and quiet. Meanwhile, Mortimer and Randolph have bailed Billy Ray out of jail, given him a job, and moved him into Louis' life. And, since commodity trading is merely a legal version of the swindling Billy Ray has been doing all his life, he proves to be a natural at Louis' job. Billy Ray is discovering that being rich isn't quite what he thought it would be, and Louis is finding poverty quite annoying. Louis is also becoming obsessed with finding the man who he blames all his problems on - Billy Ray. After a wild confrontation scene at the company Christmas party, Louis cracks. Randolph wins the bet, and when he and Mortimer retire to the Gentlemen's room to settle up (one whole dollar), Billy Ray (who was hiding out, smoking a joint) overhears the whole thing. He also hears how Mortimer and Randolph wouldn't hear of having a negro (they actually use a stronger word) run their company, no matter how good he was. Billy Ray goes out and finds Louis (who has tried to kill himself), and brings him back to his house. After explaining the situation, the two of them decide they have to do something - and that something shows up on the TV set, in the form af Clarence Beakes. Seems that Beakes is in charge of transporting a secret crop report from the field to Washington. It would also appear that Beakes is on Mortimer and Randolph's payroll, and they plan on engaging in some insider trading. So, Billy Ray, Louis, Ophelia, and Coleman arrange to get their hands on that report first, and get false information to Mortimer and Randolph. They succeed, barely, and in the final showdown at the exchange, Louis and Billy Ray manage to drive Mortimer and Randolph into bankruptcy, while getting rich at their expense. And, in the end, Billy Ray, Louis and Ophelia, and the Coleman all wind up living happily ever after.
This film dates back to when Eddie Murphy was funny - some might even say the same about Dan Ackroyd (given the somewhat lackluster performance of The Coneheads). It was one of the first films for both actors, and was a good introduction for both of them. It also gave Jamie Lee Curtis a chance to be in something other than the mutilated teen flicks she had been starring in up to this point (and in this film, there weren't any butt doubles (see True Lies for more on that subject)). Jim Belushi, Frank Oz (of muppet fame), Al Franken and Tom Davis also put in guest appearances as a semi-drunken party monster, a smart aleck cop, and two clueless baggage handlers. And at the end of the film, Clarence Beakes would like to trade places with any of them - watch the film, you'll see what I mean - and have a good laugh while you're at it.