SmileysWorld I recently stumbled across this film again after many years while channel surfing and soon I found myself laughing to beat the band.I had seen it years earlier when it was new.I'm not sure why I steered clear of it in subsequent years.Maybe it's under-rooted disturbing theme of murder.At any rate,I found myself engrossed in this film.Despite being dark around the edges,it really is an entertaining film.Billy Crystal was still in his prime,as was DeVito,and Anne Ramsey was a delight as "Momma"..Now that I have revisited this comedy gem that I had apparently forgotten,I will be looking to put it on the DVD shelf in the near future.

chaos-rampant This is fun and cerebral, which is more than can be said about most comedies then or now. I don't know who to credit as the main voice behind the film, but it shows a confluence of talent that work with each other well and care to craft something vibrant with some intelligence.I'll have you imagine it as something between Rob Reiner (who produces here) and the Coens. Two writers faced with writer's block may be creating each the other's storyworld. This parallel flow is hammered early in the film with the symmetric shots of writers on their desks, puzzling about a story. Both are faced with an impossible living situation, both are hampered in their creative endeavor by a similar strain. One is a college professor, his block is largely mental, ego- recurring thoughts of his wife. The other is an unrefined simpleton who is still living with his momma, his block is this nasty woman and it manifests physically with slaps and abuse. We begin and end with the more complicated writer finishing up on the book we just 'saw'. A tad simpler and we'd be close to Princess Bride, harmless nested fiction for the pleasure of a world outside the norm. A tad more intricate and it'd be a sibling film of Raising Arizona, a dream complicated in the dreaming, with every cartoonish situation a bit blacker.DeVito's humorous omnipresence is great.

FlashCallahan Larry Donner is an author and writing professor who tutors people that want to write books. His life has become a misery when his ex-wife Margaret has published a book he wrote under her name and has become rich over it. Owen Lift, one of Larry's students, offers Larry to kill Margaret, and in return Owen, wants Larry to kill his mother. Larry thinks it's a joke, until he learns Owen has killed his ex-wife. And Larry has now become the prime suspect....Crystal has always been a great screen presence, and Kudos to Devito for taking a back seat and let the other actors take all the best lines and best scenes.It starts off pretty tame, we have Crystal, whining and moaning in every scene, and then Devito, the quiet oddball you know is going to annoy him, so far, so average.But then we get properly introduced to Ramsey, who is just brilliant in her role, and once Crystal has become trapped in Owens house, it never lets up.It's a really dark comedy, but it has such a sweet edge to it, which is evident when Owen talks about his father and especially when he shows Larry his coin collection, which is an incredibly touching scene.But hen Devito doesn't dwell on the sweetness too long, and soon brings Ramsey in to shout a random line (in one particular scene a very random line, which made me rewind several times to see if my hearing was okay).All in all, its a very fun movie, with a slow start, and a fond nod to Hitchcock, with a surprisingly schmaltz free ending.Very underrated

kyle-cruse We're living in sad times today, in which it seems like every comedy movie and TV show is painfully unfunny and inflicted with cheap, crude, or poor humor. Most people don't know what it means to really laugh at a comedy, and these people desperately need to watch "Throw Momma From the Train." I say with little hesitation that this is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, from beginning to end. The comedy is so unpredictable and twisted just enough to make us laugh out loud many times throughout. Don't be fooled by the murder plot. The plot is not serious enough to make us care or worry about what's going to happen. The story involves a young man (Danny DeVito) who wants to get rid of his annoying, grouchy mother (Anne Ramsey, nominated for an Oscar in a role that was completely flawless, in my opinion) and does so by killing off Billy Crystal's wife, whom Crystal wanted dead for stealing his novel. I don't want to spoil the jokes and gags in this film, but all I can say is that you must see this film if you want to laugh. Fast-paced and genuinely, a real treat to comedy lovers, and the type of film you just do not see today.***1/2 out of ****