Review: Trading Places

Two black-hearted, cynical commodities traders (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy) make a wager: Take a man of the streets and a man of means and switch their circumstances to see if they can survive. A nature vs. nurture social experiment, basically. The man of means is commodities broker Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd), whilst the man of the streets is homeless African-American con artist Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy). Valentine actually takes to his new circumstance relatively well, but poor Winthorpe struggles, even ending up in jail and shacking up with hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis) as he tries to work out just what in the hell has gone wrong. Denholm Elliott plays a butler reluctantly involved in the bet.

The films of director John Landis (“Three Amigos!”, “Spies Like Us”, “Coming to America”) don’t get a whole lot of critical love, and I believe some of that may be due to matters not pertaining to the quality of the films themselves, but controversial filmmaking practices on the set of the “Twilight Zone” movie. The man has in my view directed some of the greatest comedies of all-time, including my absolute favourite comedy “The Blues Brothers”. One film that critics (and audiences) do tend to shower with some fairly universal affection however, is this classy, perfectly cast 1983 update of “The Prince and the Pauper”. Even the music score by Elmer Bernstein (“The Magnificent Seven”, “The Great Escape”) is top-notch, not something you can really say about a lot of comedies from the 1980s.

The premise is brilliant, and really only dated by the fact that the homeless guy is black, and the snooty rich white guy is Dan Aykroyd (a staple of 80s American comedy who, like his “Spies Like Us” co-star Chevy Chase, seemed to fall out of favour somewhere in the early 90s). Landis really did have a knack for casting his films well, but also getting the best out of that cast. This is no exception. Mr. Aykroyd was born to play this snooty white yuppie whom you never quite get around to liking all that much, no matter his plight. Oddly enough it doesn’t prove to be a problem in liking the film, and it’s one of Aykroyd’s best-ever performances. Like the latter and even better “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” this is low humour with a classy, sophisticated sheen to it. Part of that class probably comes from the casting of veteran Hollywood players Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy as the unscrupulous, thoroughly rotten old commodities brokers, the Duke brothers. Don Ameche was apparently a class act who really needed to be convinced to swear on screen here, but he plays a cranky old jerk really well. Bellamy gets to play the more avuncular, but sly old crook and does it with – that word again – class. By the way, the absolute worst thing these old pricks do? They make the bet for a lousy dollar. What shameless bastards.

Anyone not born in the 80s or earlier won’t believe it, but Eddie Murphy is a laugh riot from his opening scene here as the poor con man turned into a commodities broker. Billy Ray Valentine is one of his best characters alongside Axel Foley and terrible soul singer Randy Watson from Landis’ “Coming to America”. It’s the early con artist scenes that Murphy has his finest moments, as this guy’s not just a con artist, but a terrible one. And yet, he’s the most sympathetic character in the film, due to the scheme these racist old bastards are concocting, and Murphy’s innate charm in playing the part. You might think that the racial element here would be extremely dated in 2019, but it isn’t quite that on the nose for the most part. More than Valentine being a racial stereotype, it’s that these two racist old men are racially stereotyping him, and Murphy breaks the fourth wall in one absolutely brilliant reaction shot to let us know that Valentine isn’t ignorant to that fact. Some might not find this racial humour funny, but I think Landis and co get away with it quite easily. The homophobic insults hurled in the film are far less easy to defend, however. Mostly the film is about class differences, not racial differences. Landis plays the life of these privileged white snobs for all the pretentious, shameful pomp and nonsense that it clearly is. The brilliant cameo by Frank Oz (potentially playing the same character from “The Blues Brothers”) as a cop checking Aykroyd’s belongings and being completely no-bullshit about it is priceless in this regard. I’m not really a fan of fish-out-of-water comedy, but this is clearly one of the best. Valentine’s distrust and disbelief at his new life is both funny and pointed. Just look at the bit where the butler wants to take his coat. It’s both funny and sad.

Denholm Elliott might seem like he’s basically playing John Gielgud from “Arthur” here, but it’s not quite that simple. What really makes his character here is that he clearly has no love for Aykroyd or the Duke Brothers, he’s simply doing what he has to do to stay employed. You end up very much being sympathetic towards him, and Elliott has one of his choicest character parts, even getting to do a drunken Irish priest bit at one point late in the film. For some stupid reason I didn’t like Jamie Lee Curtis in this when I was a kid. I was wrong, as she like everyone here plays her part perfectly. I’ve actually come to really like seeing her on screen, she’s a really versatile and underrated talent. Seems like an awesome person too, from what I can tell. It amazes me that the only Oscar nomination this film got was for Bernstein’s excellent score. As far as I’m concerned, Murphy, Aykroyd, Bellamy, Ameche, and Elliott all deserved nominations for their performances. They’re an excellent ensemble. Like Elliott, Curtis gets to do some funny character stuff impersonating a Swedish exchange student, who appears to be slightly culturally confused (Because Curtis apparently couldn’t do an Austrian accent). Murphy of course gets a chance to play another part, pretending to be an annoying exchange student from Cameroon, and he’s hilarious. Veteran humourless jerk Paul Gleason has a fun role as a cranky prick bad guy, and the cameos by Jim Belushi, Al Franken, and Tom Davis are funny. Less funny is the bit where poor Dan Aykroyd dons the boot polish and Bob Marley wig to play a Rastafarian. Yeah, that has aged absolutely appallingly. That and the gay jabs here and there do leave a sour taste in the mouth.

I’ve always really liked this film, but for some reason it’s always fallen somewhere in that second or third tier of really good/great comedies. I think looking at it again in 2019, that reason is because we spend the majority of the film with Aykroyd’s character, where most of the laughs really come from Murphy, Ameche, and Bellamy. That said, it’s amusing watching the pompous rich guy get messier and more decrepit-looking as the film goes on. Aykroyd as a pre-“Bad Santa” drunk and filthy-looking Santa and Jim Belushi in a gorilla costume are the most John Landis elements in the whole film, aside from the requisite ‘See You Next Wednesday’ reference.

Even if it’s not consistently gut-busting, every bit of this comedy is cleverly done and perfectly performed. Scripted by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod (who teamed up for “Twins” and the awful “Space Jam”), it’s a very good, if not great comedy from an era with even better comedies.

Rating: B+