just a couple of bookies

Before John Landis made the completely-awful Beverly Hills Cop 3, he had the ability to tap into… well, something that was connected with the zeitgeist. The best example of which is probably Trading Places. Rather brilliantly written by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod, it deals with the eternal debate of nature vs nurture. And who better to step up the R&D on that sort of thing than philanthropists with a lot of capital? Instead of donations, however, stuffy old rich white guys Randolph (Ralph Bellamy) and Mortimer Duke (Don Ameche) pull a little switcheroo with a snobbish commodities trader named Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) and street-wise bum Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy), and it’s not because of goodwill (they bet each other a dollar). Billy Ray, previously seen begging for change in a posh Philly suburb, suddenly finds himself living in said suburb with a new job, salary, and butler (wonderfully played by Denholm Elliott). Winthorpe, previously engaged to Penelope Witherspoon (Kristin Holby - hot), is framed for drug possession, thrown out of the swank Heritage Club, and winds up having to pawn off his very expensive “Roche Vouceau” wristwatch. “This is the sports watch of the ’80s. $6,955 retail! It tells time simultaneously in Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome and Gstaad!” “In Philadelphia,” says the pawnbroker, “it’s worth 50 bucks.”

Naturally, Winthorpe gets help from hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis, taking a break from horror movies). It isn’t quite enough, as he sinks into a depression, runs around at Christmastime in a Santa suit holding a gun and stealing food, and finally attempts suicide. He wakes up in his own bed, thinking it all a dream. “It was all because of this terrible awful negro” he tells butler Coleman. The snippets of overt racism in the film make its messages a bit thorny - the film suggests its existence in other, subtle ways, which would have sufficed. I would say that the movie isn’t about race at all, but class warfare (some people see them as the same; whether the movie does is up for debate). I find it hard to believe that Winthorpe is a racist (his hatred of Valentine stems at first from his “status” of being in poverty, ie: not in his own circle of elites; later, it’s the perception that Valentine has stolen his house, job, and butler). In fact, it’s relatively easy for the pair to become fast friends once they realize they have a common enemy. The Duke brothers seem to come to agreement that environment rules over genetics, so why the racist attitude towards Valentine? Maybe you just can’t teach old dogs new tricks.

In it to WIN It

In any case, Valentine and Winthorpe travel to Wall Street and turn the Dukes’ attempts to corner the frozen concentrated orange juice market against them. Having obtained the real orange crop report from bad guy Clarence Beeks (Paul Gleason - another great performance), they slip Duke & Duke a fake report, fooling them into believing there will be a shortage. Naturally, at the market’s open, the Dukes start buying like crazy. Then Winthorpe drops the bomb: “Sell 200 April at 1.42!” After the crop report reveals no OJ shortage, they wait for the price to drop like a rock, and then start zeroing their positions. The Dukes obviously can’t satisfy their margin call, and thus wind up in the poorhouse.

Naturally, you must suspend disbelief in this scene, as safeguards would ensure such dramatic price movements never occur (’curbs in’). You also have to be comfortable with the fact that Winthorpe and Valentine are now guilty of theft and insider trading (that might explain the final scene which finds them in a tropical setting, presumably far away from the U.S.). Trading Places is a movie that is anti-elitist and yet pro-capitalist (even the hooker has her money in T-bills, earning interest). It suggests riches to those only who have been humbled - not a bad message. Like other similar comedies of the time (Easy Money, Beverly Hills Cop), it mixes high-brow with low-brow to good effect, and isn’t afraid to have classes mix it up. It throws the rich and the poor into the same blender to discover that (most of the time) all classes really do share a common humanity. Of course in this instance it’s the realization that everyone wants to be rich. A film that could only have been made in the 80s.

~Bill G

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There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, but there is no me. I simply am not there.

Most of Bret Easton Ellis’ characters exist in no more than one dimension, so Bateman’s confession shouldn’t be surprising. In this heartwarming tale of a 27-year-old Wall Street mergers-and-acquisitions VP of something-or-the-other who slashes the crap out of bums, hookers and anyone at the firm who outshines him, Bateman does his best to be no deeper than his business card, the aesthetics of which no one should attempt to outshine unless they want to end up decomposing in a bathtub in Hell’s Kitchen.

Bateman obviously is putting up a facade: the question left by this movie is, which of his activities are the more false front? As an M&A VP, he can get into just about any restaurant (ok, maybe not Dorsia, so we never learn whether or not the place has a restroom conducive to
cocaine use), but everyone, from his attorney to his coworkers, mistakes him for someone else; once or twice he attempts vaguely to exploit this fact to obtain information about a competitors’ account, but mostly it serves to portray him and his yuppie cohort as conformist, cloned and lacking in personality. At one point Bateman
launches into an oratory about everyone’s Armani suits, Oliver Peoples glasses and visits to the same barber. They sleep with each other’s significant others, and compare tanning regimens and business cards. But as a killer — stabbing bums in the gut, shooting police cars
until they explode, attempting to feed a stray cat to an ATM (c’mon, the ATM was asking for it), and making numerous murderous confessions which are completely ignored — he also comes off as more ridiculous
than sublime, leading you to wonder if it’s all in his head. At the end of the movie, it really doesn’t matter, as Patrick Bateman is still unrecognizable.

The ethos in the book is far darker, and in it Bateman comes off far less in search of identity and far more pathological. But by watering down his personality and lifestyle in the movie, director Mary Harron has created a film that serves as a critique of the yuppie lifestyle as a nameless, faceless, shallow and delusional one, where your suit manufacturer, apartment size and location, and quality of business card are all you have to go on. Take out the murders and you’re left with an guy who works out, moisturizes his face, dines out, does some coke, has some drinks, and maybe listens to the occasional Huey Lewis record. If that’s all we’re supposed to believe the 80s were about, maybe that makes this the quintessential 80’s-satire flick.

- Alyx