Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2216 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-12-02
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
• Dubbed in: French, German, Italian, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 111 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
In this crowd-pleasing 1983 comedy of high finance about a homeless con artist who becomes a Wall Street robber baron, Eddie Murphy consolidated the success of his startling debut in the previous year's 48 Hours and polished his slick-winner persona. The turnabout begins with an argument between super-rich siblings, played by Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche: are captains of industry, they wonder, born or made? To settle the issue, the meanies construct a cruel experiment in social Darwinism. Preppie commodities trader Dan Aykroyd (perfectly cast) is stripped of all his worldly goods and expelled from the firm, and Murphy's smelly derelict is appointed to take his place, graduating to tailored suits and a world-class harem in record time. Eventually the two men team up to teach the nasty old manipulators a lesson, cornering the market in frozen orange juice futures in the process. Director John Landis (The Blues Brothers) doesn't have the world's lightest touch, but he hits most of the jokes hard and quite a few of them pay off. Trading Places is also a landmark film for fans of Jamie Lee Curtis. --David Chute, Amazon.com

Special Features
1.78 Anamorphic Wide Screen
French\German\Italian\Spanish
English
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English\Mono French German Italian Spanish
Dolby Digital 5.1
Mono
Arabic\Bulgarian\Croatian\Czech\Danish\Dutch\English\Finnish\French\German\Greek\Hebrew\Hungarian\Icelandic\Italian\Norwegian\Polish\Portuguese\Romanian\Slovenian\Spanish\Swedish\Turkish

Synopsis
As the result of a bet between two wealthy commodities traders, the lifestyles of a street hustler (Eddie Murphy) and a blue-nosed employee (Dan Akroyd) of the brokerage are reversed. The innocent victims of the bet scramble to make it in their new foreign environments, with hysterical results. Once they discover the switch played on them, they set out to exact their comic revenge on the execs, played by the grand old actors Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche..

Customer Reviews

Smart, shocking and sophisticated
Dan Aykroyd (The Blues Brothers) stars as Louis Winthorpe, a smart and rich businessman who gets his life turned around when he is kicked out of his house and is forced to live on the street, all because of 2 other businessmen who have placed a wager to see if a street thief would succeed in his place.

In this ambitious and dramatic tale, viewers are invited into the hard and cruel life of the business world and what goes on behind closed doors, and though unrealistic, is a tale of cunning and loyalty in a great comedy drama.

In his best ever role, Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop) stars as street urchin Billy Ray Valentine, a cheeky and egotistical man who can't believe his luck when he is invited to work for the Dukes, the two businessmen who are scamming against him. Murphy excels in his own way, with that big smile and that own sophistication that he does so well, and the reason that this is his best ever role, is because as well as the comedy, there is a strong and determined belief about his character that is admirable and watchable and through his portrayal, we can see differences in the type of culture his character takes to.

Murphy is matched on every level by an excellent performance by Aykroyd whose life falls through our very eyes. The way his life can't seem to get any worse is one of the many reasons this film works so well.

These performances are matched with a gripping plot that sees viewers taken into the dark side of the business life, and through two evil and manipulative money driven owners, the Dukes. And the concept of money drives the film forward and the cruelty behind their bet is unbelievable and horrible to even think about, and is shown in such a dramatic fashion.

There is plenty of illegal activity, not to mention racial abuse and discrimination through the hierarchy that it is unthinkable that business was once like this.

Though I was completely lost during the final couple of scenes, this is a serious ideology encoded into a fairly humorous and dramatic film about the dealings and the life in business.

8.5/10

Way above par US comedy
American film comedies are two a penny really, they make so many of the things, and I personally find so many of them rubbish. They often suffer from unsubtle stories, acting, and most of all, screenplays. When they make the odd good one, and they do, you really tend to notice it. This is one of the good ones, and as such, is still watchable after all these years, when so many of them just put you off watching again, with their knock you over the head humour.

Diverting comedy
The typical role reversal comedy gets a slightly skewed look to it in this good solid film. The opening titles set the scene as the camera tracks over modern day Philadelphia, mixing pictures of extreme affluence with scenes of desperate poverty. Into this cauldron are flung the two characters of Winthorpe (Dan Aykroyd) and Billy-Ray (Eddie Murphy). Aykroyd is the rich, young arrogant trader who has everything - the house, the car, the girl and even the English butler (the wonderful Denholm Elliot). Murphy is the down and out, fast talking street bum who has nothing. Winthorpe's employers, the evil Duke Brothers (played with oily relish by the sublime Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche) decide on a small wager, reckoning that any man taken off the street could do the job their highly paid poodle Aykroyd is doing. Additionally, dragging Aykroyd's character down to the very depths of society would turn him to crime very quickly. Murphy is plucked from a Police Cell to help with their "social experiment".
There are laughs aplenty in this movie, but few of them explosive belly laughs (or even pork belly laughs). Eddie Murphy shouts and swears a lot, but is generally tolerable, Aykroyd gives a wonderful pathos performance, and Jamie Lee Curtis never looked finer and more attractive as the fair Ophelia.
My only quibble, and the main reason for docking this film it's final star, is the excruciating train compartment scenes where our characters try to set up the Duke Brother's stooge by pretending to be various "characters". They all over act horrendously and how the razor sharp minded (apparently) evil character they are trying to ensnare doesn't twig what they are up to within the first nano-seconds of them all entering the compartment really does stretch the viewers credulity.
That said, it is a feel good movie and it will make you smile. Try it!