Trading Places

Trading Places

Directed by John Landis, starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy, and considered one of the all-time classic comedies of the 1980's, it would almost be impossible for me to not like this movie.

And yet.

This is the first big screenplay by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod, the writers behind Twins, Kindergarten Cop, and Space Jam. This movie is the exact same as those movies, in that it's a big hooky premise that they technically deliver on, but don't actually do anything creative or interesting with. In Twins they're twins but they look different and that's it, in Kindergarten Cop he's a cop going undercover as a kindergarten teacher and that's it, in Space Jam Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes sell products and that's it, and in Trading Places they trade places and that's it.

The whole premise of the two bored billionaires deciding to have these men switch lives doesn't really work because it makes both of the lead characters inactive. Neither of them have actual goals outside of the predicament they're in, so it's really hard to care about either of them as people. What if Dan Aykroyd's character wanted to trade places with Eddie Murphy because he wants freedom from the boring rich world and Eddie Murphy agrees because he wants to be rich? It's simple and derivative but it at least gives them goals to achieve. Instead Eddie Murphy's character changes far too quickly into a stuffy, pissy rich man and Dan Aykroyd becomes abrasive and horrible overnight, for no reason other than to serve the forced plot. It doesn't feel like actual consequential storytelling, which explains why the third act is just insane nonsense (including Dan Aykroyd doing blackface and a man being raped by a gorilla), because the writing is lazy.

None of these characters are strong or memorable. Dan Aykroyd is a typical boring rich guy who then becomes a typical boring crazy guy. We meet Eddie Murphy's character when he's pretending to be a wounded veteran, which is horrific, and that kind of sets up his character for the rest of the movie, which is an obvious attempt at making a scrappy, lovable scam artist, but instead he's completely unlikable throughout the whole film. And in the 80's Eddie Murphy was a comedy god, so to see his comedic potential completely wasted in this is a pretty big bummer. Jamie Lee Curtis is a sex worker with no personality and the only other side character I can even remember is the butler, who's fine.

The movie gets kinda racist at a few points, some of which is justified by which character is doing it and some of which is not. When the creepy old rich guys use the n-word it's at least coming from villainous characters who would probably say that in real life, but then there's Dan Aykroyd doing blackface for absolutely no reason other than a shock-laugh and that can't possibly be justified. Murphy's character is also a pretty big stereotype, which might be a product of the times, but is still pretty cringeworthy to watch.

Admittedly I came in expecting a modern Prince and the Pauper, with Aykroyd and Murphy actively wanting to trade places with each other instead of being tricked, which is my own fault, not the movie's. However, if they had gone for that simple premise they could've had a lot more fun with the jokes and had actual consequences in the story with actually likable characters instead of whatever this ended up being.

Maybe this movie was groundbreaking at the time, but it's very dated and sleepy now, and I came in really wanting to like it.