Throw Momma From the Train, 1987.
Directed by Danny DeVito.
Starring Danny DeVito, Billy Crystal, Anne Ramsey, and Kim Greist.
SYNOPSIS:
Any Throw Momma From the Train fans in the audience? If so, you’ll be as pleased as I am with this new release from Kino Lorber, which is available on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD. The movie looks great, and the company commissioned a pair of new bonus features in addition to porting over extras from previous releases. Highly recommended if you enjoy this movie too.
Throw Momma From the Train has its share of detractors, but count me among its fans. In my view, you can’t go wrong with Danny DeVito, Billy Crystal, and Anne Ramsey in a scenery-chewing role that was among her best performances, as well as, sadly, one of the last of her career. (This is also DeVito’s directorial debut.)
DeVito plays Owen Lift, who’s one of his usual schlubby characters, although this time he’s one of a (mostly) benign variety. His mother, the eponymous “Momma,” is played by Anne Ramsey, and she’s about as cruel as they come.
Crystal is Larry Donner, a struggling novelist who teaches a community college creative writing class that Owen attends. His resentment toward his ex-wife Margaret (Kate Mulgrew), who he accuses of stealing one of his books from him, has created serious writer’s block. The fact that she has experienced fame and fortune from the book makes his situation even worse.
Owen fantasizes about killing his mother and finds an outlet for those desires in mediocre murder stories he writes for the class. Larry recommends Owen watch an Alfred Hitchcock film for inspiration, and when Owen attends a showing of Strangers on a Train, he comes up with the perfect plan: he will kill Margaret in exchange for Larry killing Momma, and as long as both of them have solid alibis, neither will be suspected of the crime since they don’t have clear connections to the victims.
Owen takes it on himself to travel to Hawaii, where Margaret lives, to off her and force Larry to hold up the other end of a bargain that he’s not even aware Owen has involved him in. Owen succeeds in pushing Margaret off a cruise ship and returns home to a horrified Larry who not only doesn’t want to kill Momma but is now also the prime suspect in Margaret’s presumed death. When Larry decides to hide from the police at Owen’s house, he’s eventually convinced to commit murder.
Throw Momma From the Train is about as black as black comedies can get, and much of its physical humor is a bit over-the-top, but I’d argue that there’s even more going on beneath the surface here. Watching it again for the first time in however many decades, I was struck by things like Owen calling Larry from Hawaii, realizing he can’t spend too long at a pay phone because the call might be traced, and moving to increasingly more ridiculous locations.
There are other clues too, such as Owen’s arrival at Margaret’s house having a bit of an artificial look to it (and how did he know where she lived, anyway?) and the odd piles of junk in the room where the police conduct an interrogation. It’s almost as if the movie shifts its point-of-view from an omniscient one to one that’s firmly inside the head of one of the characters. Perhaps it’s Owen having a break-through and telling a great, albeit slightly off-kilter, story?
I suppose I’ll watch it again soon to see if that theory has any merit. Or maybe I’m seeing things that aren’t really there. At any rate, if you’re a fan of this film too, you’ll want this new release from Kino Lorber, which looks stunning thanks to the new 4K restoration that they commissioned. I received the Blu-ray for this review, but it’s available on 4K Ultra HD too.
On the bonus features front, Kino Lorber serves up two new ones, a commentary track by critic Joe Ramoni and a 24-minute featurette, Wide Angle Dark Humor, that offers an interview with cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who made his own directing debut a few years after this film came out.
Everything else has been ported over from previous discs, including three more featurettes with a total running time of 32 minutes, four deleted scenes, and the trailer. One of the featurettes, the 10-minute Why Do You Hate Your Mother?, is the kind of inspired extra you don’t see much of anymore: it brings in some psychologists and psychotherapists who get into why some people do indeed hate their mothers.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
