Throw Momma from the Train (1987) * 1/2

Directed by:  Danny DeVito

Starring:  Billy Crystal, Danny DeVito, Anne Ramsay, Kate Mulgrew, Kim Greist

This is an unpleasant comedy which draws inspiration, but not laughs, from Hitchock's Strangers on a Train.     Larry (Crystal) is a failed writer/literature professor whose one good idea was stolen by his ex-wife and turned into a best seller for her.    Owen (DeVito) is a student in Larry's writing class under the thumb of the mother from hell (Ramsay).     Larry wishes his ex were dead and Owen feels the same way about his hateful mother.     The plan?    Owen will kill Larry's ex and Larry will kill Owen's mother.     Owen has no motive to kill Larry's ex and Larry has no motive to kill the old lady, so the cops will be stymied in their investigations.     This sounds a lot simpler in theory than practice.    The results are painful to watch.  

The biggest problem is Momma, played by Anne Ramsay in an inexplicably Oscar-nominated performance.    She plays Momma as written, but she is so hateful, vicious, and malevolent that we cringe when she is onscreen.    We don't laugh when she viciously lays into Owen with her constant demands.    There is nothing funny about her.    There is nothing funny about her abusive treatment of her son.    Since Throw Momma from the Train is billed as a comedy, this undermines the whole enterprise.     I suppose we needed to see why Owen would want her killed, but couldn't they have dialed her down?    Make her an insufferable nag, but not necessarily an evil one who speaks as if she has a mouthful of food whenever she spews out her venom.     Larry's ex is shamelessly selfish, but nowhere near as openly cruel as Momma.     The joke should be on Larry and Owen as the pathetic losers they are.    We should laugh at them trying to worm their way out of their predicaments.   We should not be subjected to scenes in which Larry could potentially break bones.    

DeVito, as director, did not yet master the dark, macabre humor that was present in his War of the Roses (1989), which was released two years after this movie.   War of the Roses was somehow less mean-spirited and did contain moments of truth as the war between the spouses escalated.    There was even something to be learned from it.   We sense that Larry and Owen are every bit as mean and selfish as the people they want killed, so what are we rooting for exactly?    We don't want them to succeed in killing their victims, but we don't want sympathize with them either.    They don't seem to like each other very much.   DeVito and Crystal expend enough energy to interest us at first, mostly because they are the inherently likable Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal.

The picture above shows DeVito with an iron frying pan in his hand.   The scene ends with DeVito whacking Crystal across the forehead with it.    This was played out long before this film was ever made.    The plot is straight out of Hitchcock, while the humor is straight out of The Three Stooges.    This is an ungainly combination.    Throw Momma from the Train's entire aura is way off.    It is a dark comedy with too much emphasis on dark and not nearly emphasis on comedy.   It all works out in the end, I suppose, but what an unpleasant journey getting there.