Part of Weekend Classics: Lovers on the Lam
When ex-cop Ed McDonnough (Holly Hunter) discovers that her womb “is a rocky place” where the seed of her ex-con husband H.I. (Nicolas Cage) “can find no purchase,” she puts in motion a plan to kidnap one of a local furniture magnate’s new quintuplets. Set to the yodeling chorus of an old Bob Wills tune, the Coens’ lovable and ever-quotable 1987 comedy co-stars John Goodman, William Forsythe and former Nashville fixture Randall “Tex” Cobb.
“The Coen brothers...deliver this bouncing baby picture with nods to Monty Python, comic Sam Kinison, the Gerber Baby and the Road Warrior. It is a wacky, happy, daring, darkly comic tale of parenting outside the law. It celebrates the middle-of-the-road dreams of decidedly off-center folks. It's a bundle of joy.” —Rita Kempley, Washington Post
“To their old fascination with Sunbelt pathology, to their side-winding Steadicam and pristine command of screen space, the Coens have added a robust humor, a plot that keeps outwitting expectations and a surprising dollop of sympathy for their forlorn kidnappers.” —Richard Corliss, TIME
“...The best comedy about kidnapping ever made. Small category, admittedly.” —Bill Cosford, Miami Herald