Written by Timothy Harris And Herschel Weingrod
Directed by John Landis
Louis: "Listen, do you have any better ideas?"
Billy Ray: "Yeah. You know, it occurs to me that the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people."
Coleman: "You have to admit, sir, you didn't like it yourself a bit."
I'm still on a Christmas movie catch up and I have to admit that I've never watched all of this movie in one sitting. I've seen bits over the years but last night, I decided to watch the movie in it's entirety. I'm glad I did.
It's a movie with a straightforward concept. Take two very different men. In this case, a street hustler named Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) and a commodities banker named Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) and show what would happen if their lives were reversed.
That was the idea of Louis's bosses - brother duo, Randolph (Ralph Bellamy) and Mortimer Duke (Don Ameche). They had a bet that both Billy and Louis would fall into their preconceived notions of what would happen if things were different for each other. It was an experiment that almost worked. Until it didn't.
For Billy, getting to live in Louis's house with the latter's butler, Coleman (Denholm Elliott) and working Louis's job certainly has it's advantages. It turned out that Billy's quite shrewd on the stock market, much to the annoyance of the Duke brothers. Both of them showed their racist selves pretty quickly.
On the other hand, being poor didn't quite suit Louis. He lost his job, home, annoying fiancée Penelope (Kristin Holby) but on the other hand, he did gain a friend in Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis). Actually it was more than that as Louis and Ophelia became a couple by the end of the movie.
Having Louis, Ophelia and Billy team up to get back at the Duke brothers definitely had the type of comic mishaps you couldn't get away with today. Those scenes did have me laughing out loud and it was satisfying watching the Dukes lose everything.
- There's minor roles for Ron Taylor, J.T. Turner and Giancarlo Esposito in this movie along with Avon Long.
- At the time, there was hesitation in casting both Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis in this movie but fortunately we got both.
- Standout music: Sylvester's Do You Wanna Funk and The Silhouettes Get A Job.
- Chronology: 1980s New York during the Christmas season.
Now that I've properly watched it, I got to say that I really liked Trading Places. It's not very Christmassy as other movies I e watched this month but it's certainly enjoyable. Both Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy are on terrific form.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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