Big Trouble (film)

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Big Trouble
Big Trouble movie poster
Directed by	Barry Sonnenfeld
Produced by	Jim Wedaa Barry Sonnenfeld Tom Jacobson Barry Josephson Graham Place Chris Soldo
Written by	Robert Ramsey Matthew Stone based on a novel by Dave Barry
Starring	Tim Allen Rene Russo Stanley Tucci Tom Sizemore Johnny Knoxville Dennis Farina
Music by	James Newton Howard
Distributed by	Touchstone Pictures
Release date(s)	April 5, 2002
Running time	85 min
Language	English
Budget	$40,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Big Trouble (2002) is a comedic film based on the novel Big Trouble by Dave Barry. It was directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and featured a large cast including Tim Allen, Rene Russo and Dennis Farina. Like much of Barry's fiction, it follows a diverse group of people through a series of extremely strange and humorous situations against the backdrop of Miami and south Florida.

Tagline: They have forty-five minutes to save the world. They need forty-six.

1 Characters
2 Plot
3 Controversy
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Characters

Eliot Arnold (Tim Allen)
Anna Herk (Rene Russo)
Arthur Herk (Stanley Tucci)
Jenny Herk (Zooey Deschanel)
Matt Arnold (Ben Foster)
Henry (Dennis Farina)
Leonard (Jack Kehler)
Andrew (DJ Qualls)
Puggy (Jason Lee)
Nina (Sofía Vergara)
Snake (Tom Sizemore)
Eddie (Johnny Knoxville)
Two FBI agents (Omar Epps and Heavy D)
Monica Romero (Janeane Garofalo)
Walter Kramitz (Patrick Warburton)

[edit] Plot

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Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A simple high-school game of "Killer" brings all of these characters into direct contact with each other. Matt Arnold has to "shoot" classmate Jenny Herk with a squirt gun to advance in his game, and decides to sneak up on her at home one night. Meanwhile, hitmen Henry and Leonard are also watching the house, biding their time until they can whack Arthur. When the fake assassination attempt crosses paths with the real one, the police are called out to the resulting disturbance and Eliot has to explain his son's actions. Matt and Jenny feel an instant attraction to each other, as do Eliot and Anna. But if this was just a prank gone wrong, why is there a bullet lodged in the TV?

Arthur Herk realizes that he was the bullet's intended victim, and loses the little bit of mental stability he had. He races to a seedy bar that serves as a front for Russian arms dealers, hoping to get something with which to defend himself. His employers, he tells the dealers, have sent him to retrieve the big guns. They give him the biggest gun imaginable: a nuclear bomb in a suitcase. Unfortunately, lowlifes Snake and Eddie pick this moment to rob the "bar". Oblivious to the actual contents of the suitcase, but convinced that it is very valuable, they steal it.

The FBI agents pursue the crooks. The hitmen pursue Arthur. The Herk women and the Arnold men pursue each other. The cops try to figure out what in the world is going on. And Arthur gets squirted in the face by a hallucinogenic toad, and begins to think that Martha Stewart has possessed his dog.

The dimwitted criminals end up on a plane headed for The Bahamas with the bomb still in tow. Eliot manages to sneak onto the same flight in one last effort to save the day, stop the bad guys and show his son that he is not a loser after all.

[edit] Controversy

Big Trouble was originally scheduled for release on September 21, 2001 and had a strong advertising push. Unfortunately, the events of September 11 of that year cast an unshakable pall over the movie's comedic smuggling of a nuclear device onto an airplane. (A gun also makes its way onto the plane, but this was easily overshadowed by the specter of the WMD.) Consequently, the film was pushed back until April 2002, and the promotion campaign was toned down almost to the point of abandonment. Big Trouble came quietly to American theaters and left quickly afterwards, receiving some positive reviews but generally ignored by audiences.

[edit] Trivia

In the book, Matthew Arnold actually gets aboard the plane to rescue Jenny Herk.
The vulgarity is not as bad as in the book, where it is used constantly. This was probably to keep the rating to PG-13.