Film Forum

(1987) “Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.” Recidivist stick up artist H.I. McDunnough (Nicolas Cage) marries cop Edwina (Holly Hunter) but they can’t have children – so they kidnap one of the famed newborn Arizona quintuplets, in this high-octane, Warner Bros. cartoon-style slapstick comedy. With John Goodman as a dashboard-pounding jailbird and boxer Randall “Tex” Cobb as the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse. DCP. Approx. 92 mins.

Reviews

“Full of raw comic energy, as silly as [it is] sophisticated”
–  Rita Kempley, Washington Post

“An episode of 'Hee Haw' directed by an amphetamine-crazed Orson Welles.”
– Dave Kehr, The Chicago Tribune

“It has a rambunctious charm. The Sunsets look marvellously ultra-vivid; the paint doesn’t seem to be dry—it’s like opening day at a miniature-golf course.”
– Pauline Kael

“Damn near hysterical.”
– Pat Graham, The Chicago Reader

“A fervently inventive comedy. 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.”
– Geoff Andrews, Time Out London