Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

(1987)

This is a movie about a man who steals a baby. It’s hilarious.

I don’t mind movies where the “protagonist” is the one doing something wrong when his heart’s in the right place. And yet, obviously, I would never condone kidnapping in real life even with Hi’s reasoning.

Yes, Herbert I. McDunnough, (Nicolas Cage) goes by Hi. After his wife learns she can’t conceive and a local rich guy has quintuplets, Hi, who doesn’t exactly have a shining reputation to begin with, is influenced to steal one of the five newborns for himself and his wife to keep.

The events leading up to this eventuality and all that happens after are some of the most random occurrences coming together to form this story. It’s almost like watching Napoleon Dynamite or Gentleman Broncos. Just so random… and hilarious.

John Goodman and William Forsythe crawling out of the mud (I hope it was mud) has to be one of the most terrifying things I’d ever seen as a kid. Now it’s funny to me because like what the heck is going on!?! It’s explained later but the audience spends a lot of time confused… or at least I did. You just have to go with it. This is also where I learned the word “recognizance” which, I’ve been informed, I use about three times too many per sentence.

I have to say, the mother of the quintuplets, does not look like a person who’s currently having babies, let alone five. She looks like a grandmother. That was a weird choice.

Nevertheless, Raising Arizona is one of the most brilliant comedies I have ever had the pleasure of viewing of my own recognizance. I don’t want to spoil any of it for you.  If you’ve never seen it of your own recognizance, stop everything and go watch it of your own recognizance.