Over 30 years ago I peed in my pants over this genius oddball comedy and I have to say it holds up every bit as well if not better now that I have aged. Just watched it with some who are half my age and they also peed in their pants.The Cohen brothers's style of camera work, editing and relentless dialogue is a a brilliant caricature of the highest order. All the characters are great and the absurdity of it all is very infectious. You will even be touched on occasion which is quite an achievement in such a crazy, yet brilliant romp. Still a strong top ten movie of all time for me!

Early into this movie, I began to long for the crispy, witty dialog and funny scenes of the great comedies of the mid-20th century. A little longer and I longed for the hilarious antics of the screwball comedies and frantic escapades of the movies of yore. And shortly, I pined for the clever, funny and wonderful plots of the old comedies. In the absence of any and all of that, "Raising Arizona" is little more than a stupid conglomeration of skits. If there is any real humor here, its disguised by nitwit characters in a dumber than dumb story. This was one of the hardest films to stay with, just to see how it ended. How anyone can find this enjoyable is beyond me. I thought about bailing on it twice, but then I wouldn't be able to be fair in a review of the film. I stayed, and my review is that this film was a waste of time – in its making and for anyone who watches it. The only character that comes close to any humor is Nathan Arizona Sr. (played by Trey Wilson) – but just in his early scenes. For clever and funny writing, I could think of only one line that might get a smile from a few viewers. That's this one when Leonard Smalls (played by Randall Cobb) visits Nathan Sr. Smalls, "You wanna find an outlaw, you call an outlaw. You wanna find a Dunkin' Donuts, call a cop." The Coen brothers tried to use techniques that were very funny in original films of decades ago, but all flop here. One is a haphazard police chase with continuous shooting that hits nothing. Another is a chase in and around, up and down, and through different rooms in a house. This is a dumb movie, with mostly dumb acting, a dumb script, dumb scenes and a dumb story. Audiences of the day, and the critics, didn't think that much of the movie then. But as society seems to dumb down in succeeding decades, this movie has viewers who enjoy it. I wonder if most have ever seen any of the great comedies of the past. The film does have a touch of sickness about it, in toying with various crimes as humorous. This is a dud of a movie,

This might be the best movie the Coen Brothers have done, and they have done some great ones. This is definitely Nick Cage's best movie, and he has done some really bad ones, this is not one of them. The Coen Brothers walk the line of humor and darkness so brilliantly. This might be the darkest story they have told, but is probably one of the lighter comedies they have done. In reality this is a story of a child kidnapping by a pathetic ex-con who can't do anything right, but in typical Coen Brother's fashion, it feels absolutely light hearted.

A 23-year-old Nicholas Cage plays Dorkman, alias H.I. McDonnough, in the Coen Brothers wild 1983 farce Raising Arizona. No, they didn't raise the state, although that might be a good idea, but that's getting ahead of ourselves. Anyway, H.I. seems to be fond of the local jail in Tempe, Arizona, since he's always hankering to go back and become the champion recidivist (or something). Let out on parole by some kindhearted officers (read unthinking), H.I. abuses their trust three times by holding up the same convenience store. Thinking ahead, he's careful not to have any bullets in his gun so he will receive a light sentence but still knows a good deal when he sees one and his holdups become habit forming.Having been photographed in prison more than the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, the only thing left to do is fall in love with the picture-taking jailer, a woman called Edwina, Ed for short (Holly Hunter) whom he proceeds to marry. Of course, Ed makes H.I. go straight so they can have a baby and raise a family. Good luck with that. When they discover that Ed is unable to bear children, however, they become Robin Hood, robbing a kid from the rich furniture dealer Nathan Arizona, Sr. (Trey Wilson) whose wife just gave birth to quintuplets, and giving to the poor (he and Ed). Little Nathan, Jr. is cute as all get out and is different than other babies in the world because he never cries, come hell or high water.Things change and not for the better when two of H.I.'s prison buddies, brothers Gale (John Goodman) and Evelle (William Forsythe), rise from the muck and escape from prison (Gale says that the institution no longer served his best interests), then park themselves in H.I's trailer. Things go from worse to much worse, however, when Leonard Smalls, a heavily armed, grotesquely-bearded biker (Randall "Tex" Cobb), looking like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse all rolled into one, is hired by Nathan to track down his baby.If you like shootings with lots of dead bodies, ridiculous car chases, surreal bank robberies, and more mayhem than the Trump White House, Raising Arizona is the film for you. By the way, it is one of the most hilarious comedies I've ever seen and even has a very touching message where you can both laugh and cry at the same time.