Throw Momma from the Train (1987)'s comments

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petenigma

"I'm gonna kill the bitch. You want anything?"
"Could you get me a Chunky?"

12 years 10 months ago

When I saw Throw Momma from the Train in theaters back in 1987, my 16-year-old self didn't grab onto the overt Hitchcock references, as this is (and admits to being to) a comedy redress of Strangers on a Train. Billy Crystal is a frustrated writer who hates his ex-wife (Kate Mulgrew) and his dumbest community college student (Danny DeVito), who daydreams of murdering his abusive mother, gets it into his head to cross murders à la Hitchcock. Obviously, Crystal isn't really keen on killing anyone and never agreed to this. It might be a blacker comedy if the characters weren't so inept and the film treated as ultimately a lark, but a little too vicious and angry at times to really charm like it wants to. I do think people don't give DeVito enough credit for being a visual director. It's often quite subtle, but he'll throw visual gags in the background (like lead the camera to a random pig before revealing his own character, or cutting for the joke), and though he withholds the titular train for longer than seems credible, he offers images of trains wherever he can. And then someone gets hit with a frying pan. The tone could have done with a tweak, but still a pretty watchable movie from the era where Billy Crystal seemed to be in a perpetual midlife crisis.

3 years 5 months ago

dajmasta94

Devito delivers some big laughs, they don't seem to make comedies like this anymore. Maybe it's just me but I would have liked a less happy ending. It all gets cleared up a little too fast but oh well I laughed a lot. I wish Devito still directed stuff it is always pretty solid.

5 years 11 months ago

Clara Bow

Louis Armstrong was trying to kill me

10 years 8 months ago

Earring72

Funny nasty black comedy

3 months 2 weeks ago