Raising Arizona

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. Read full review

What makes this hectic farce so fresh and funny is the sheer fertility of the writing, while the lives and times of Hi, Ed and friends are painted in splendidly seedy colours, turning Arizona into a mythical haven for a memorable gaggle of no-hopers, halfwits and has-beens. Starting from a point of delirious excess, the film leaps into dark and virtually uncharted territory to soar like a comet. Read full review

The film's sense of family values will make your head hurt and the chase scenes will set your noggin spinning. Read full review

Hilarious, madcap comedy from the Coen brothers that demonstrates just why they are the kings of quirk. Read full review

Raising Arizona is a prize package and a bundle of joy, one that puts a fresh, funny face on the American comedy movie. It's as encouraging as it is entertaining. [20 March 1987, p.C1]

Raising Arizona is the best comedy about kidnapping ever made. Small category, admittedly. This is a film that gets a laugh -- legitimate, unqualified, not a sick laugh at all -- out of a running gag in which a baby is left in the middle of an Arizona highway by thugs on the lam. Cars bear down, a "biker from Hell" attacks. How many filmmakers could get away with baby-in-jeopardy jokes? [10 Apr 1987, p.D1]

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 kidnapers. [23 March 1987]

Despite all the mania and exaggerated characterizations, Raising Arizona is ultimately one of the Coens’ kinder (if not gentler) efforts, a raucous cartoon that consistently offers the beleaguered, desert-stricken H.I. little oases of grace. Read full review

The snickering humor that percolated through the Coens' debut, Blood Simple, is the whole show here, and it's damn near hysterical. Read full review

The Coens abhor sentimentality, but behind the comic-book grotesqueries there's a disarming sweetness. Like "Blood Simple," this wild-card comedy knows where it's headed every inch of the way. It's a hoot and a half. [16 March 1987, p.73]

The film has an easy target in poking fun at rural folks, but it also has a warm message about individuality. It's also beautifully photographed. [8 May 1987]

Raising Arizona is no big deal, but it has a rambunctious charm. The sunsets look marvelously ultra-vivid, the pain doesn't seem to be dry – it's like opening day of a miniature golf course. [20 Apr 1987, p.81]

The whole caper loses its rhythm and its direction around the two-thirds mark. By the finish, the punch has left the lines, and the once-purposeful energy goes mindlessly manic - gone are both the point and the parody. Read full review

Cage creates a homey and thoroughly likable character who earns the respect of the audience, but Hunter is the real surprise. Appearing in her first starring role, the stage veteran displays so much energy that she forces the audience to pay attention. Read full review

As leisurely and disconnected as "Blood Simple" was taut and economical. While film is filled with many splendid touches and plenty of yocks, it often doesn't hold together as a coherent story. Read full review

Like Hi and Ed, Raising Arizona has a few problems. The repeated slapstick chases and fights are a little wearisome, and the final showdown between Hi and the biker is badly overdrawn, and gratuitously violent in the DePalma- Cronenberg style. Still, there is something appealing about a film that lists "baby wrangler" among the credits. And little T. J. Kuhn is liable to start a "critter boom" all by his lonesome. [10 Apr 1987, p.1D]

Like "Blood Simple," it's full of technical expertise but has no life of its own... The direction is without decisive style. [11 Mar 1987, p.C24]

Quickly and fatally, the overlooked form peels away from the slight, frail content, and the film starts to look like an episode of "Hee Haw" directed by an amphetamine-crazed Orson Welles. [20 March 1987]

These fraternal film makers have a lot of imagination and sense of fun - and, most of all, a terrific sense of how to manipulate imagery... But sometimes they seem to be getting too big a kick out of their own shenanigans. By the end, the fun feels a little forced. [26 Mar 1987, p.34(E)]

[The Coen Brothers] sweat and strain to deliver more of the same cinematic ingenuity, but the result seems more nervous than inspired. Relax, fellas! [13 Mar 1987]

What Raising Arizona needs more than anything else is more velocity. Here's a movie that stretches out every moment for more than it's worth, until even the moments of inspiration seem forced. Read full review

The astonishing thing about Raising Arizona is how it can move so fast, be so loud, and ramain so relentlessly boring at the same time. [20 Mar 1987]

The big trouble with Raising Arizona is that the Coens overdrew their wild and crazy yarn, and overdo almost every gag and gimmick. [20 Mar 1987]