Ruthless People

Millionaire Sam Stone (Danny DeVito) hates his wife Barbara (Bette Midler) and plans to murder her to gain control of her $15 million ($35.41 million in 2020) family fortune and run off with his mistress Carol (Anita Morris). When Sam returns home only to find her gone, an anonymous man on the phone tells Sam that Barbara has been kidnapped and threatens to kill her if Sam informs the media or the police, or if any of their detailed demands are not met. Overjoyed, Sam deliberately goes against all of the kidnapper's demands and wishes, hoping to ensure his wife's death. Furthermore, Sam fails to appear with the ransom on several occasions, even with price droppings.

The kidnappers are Ken (Judge Reinhold) and Sandy Kessler (Helen Slater), who want revenge on Sam for stealing Sandy's fashion designs, alongside the Kesslers' life savings. Barbara is imprisoned in the Kesslers' basement, where she proves difficult to the amateur kidnappers.

Carol, having learned of Sam's plan to kill Barbara, secretly intends to blackmail Sam with the help of her handsome but dim-witted boyfriend Earl (Bill Pullman). Knowing Sam plans to dump his wife's body in the Hollywood Hills at night, Carol has Earl waiting there with a video camera. Earl films a rendezvous between a prostitute and her client performing noisy sex in the front seat of a car, which he mistakes for the murder scene.

Without watching the tape, Carol anonymously sends a copy to Sam, who mistakes the tape as her titillating birthday present for him, and then another to police chief Henry Benton (William G. Schilling)—who turns to be the prostitute's client. Carol orders Benton, who assumes that he is blackmailed, to arrest Sam Stone for murdering his wife. Benton and the police find evidence incriminating Sam—a chloroform bottle intended by Sam to sedate Barbara and pictures of Sam with Carol—at Sam's house. The kidnapping investigation, which has pointed to Ken by now, is immediately called off, and Sam is arrested and faces the unhappy prospect of having to rescue his wife in order to prove his innocence.

While held captive in the Kesslers' basement, Barbara exercises to relieve her boredom and loses at least 20 pounds (9 kg) and unexpectedly bonds with Sandy, who lets Barbara wear some of her dress designs to show off her new figure. Permitted to leave, Barbara finds out from a newspaper about Sam's mistress and realizes Sam wanted her dead. Then a notorious local serial killer, the Bedroom Killer, just enters the Kessler residence and confronts both Barbara, who eventually returns, and then Ken. In a scuffle, the killer falls down the basement stairs and dies.

Barbara, Ken, and Sandy plot a revenge in motion against Sam. Armed with Barbara's inside knowledge of Sam's finances, the Kesslers have increased the ransom to equal Sam's entire net worth: over $2 million ($4.72 million in 2020). Outraged, Sam reluctantly withdraws the cash but begs the police to watch the drop-site. Carol finally views the sex videotape showing neither Sam nor Barbara. Realizing that Barbara has been kidnapped, Carol and Earl learn the time and place of the ransom drop.

At the ransom site, Sam gives the briefcase containing his life savings in cash to Ken, but then scores of hidden police suddenly appear. Then Earl arrives with a gun, sees Ken with a briefcase, and attempts to rob him. The police then captures Earl. Then Ken takes the briefcase and drives toward the waterfront during the police pursuit. He ends up driving through the end of Santa Monica Pier with the ransom cash inside. The police retrieves the car from the water and finds the dead Bedroom Killer inside, dressed in Ken's clothes and disguise. Only a few thousand dollars are recovered from the ocean.

Then Barbara appears, surprising now financially broke Sam with her newer figure, and misidentifies the Bedroom Killer as her kidnapper to the satisfied police. Then Barbara beats Sam up in retaliation for his actions during her kidnapping and pushes him into the water. On a nearby beach, Ken emerges from the water in scuba gear, carrying the briefcase with the ransom cash. Sandy runs to embrace him. Barbara joins with them to celebrate together.

The set design for the majority of the interiors of the home of Sam and Barbara Stone extensively employs the Italian radical design furniture and lighting from the Memphis Group.

The directors normally wrote all their own material. However, they were contacted by Michael Eisner, who became head of Disney after working with the trio at Paramount. According to David Zucker, Eisner "said he had a script that we wouldn't be able to turn down and he was right. It was too good. It was very well written with great characters. And hey we wouldn't have to leave town to do it."[4]

While directing Jerry Zucker would be on set talking to the actors while the other two would watch from monitors and give comments.[4]

The film was a financial success, grossing $71.6 million[3] compared to the relatively frugal budget of the film's production. It was Disney's highest-grossing film (excluding reissues).[6] Ruthless People received critical acclaim, and holds a 93% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 42 reviews. The consensus on the site reads: "It's sometimes crude and tasteless, but Ruthless People wrings acid-soaked laughs out of its dark premise and gleefully misanthropic characters."[7] On Metacritic the film has a score of 78% based on reviews from 15 critics.[8] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.[9]

Roger Ebert said that the film "is made out of good performances, a script of diabolical ingenuity, and a whole lot of silliness."[10] Leonard Maltin agreed that this "clever farce" has "lots of laughs, bright performances, but turns sour: these really are unpleasant people!"[11]

Although it has been perceived that Ruthless People was influenced by O. Henry's story "The Ransom of Red Chief", writer Dale Launer claims that it was inspired by the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst and that the similarities between the film and the earlier story were a coincidence.[12]

The album's soundtrack was released on Epic Records.

The cd release on the song Waiting To See You by Dan Hartman is missing the first several drum bars. The vinyl lp and cassette does not have these first several drum bars missing. The soundtrack version of "Ruthless People" is similar to the version heard in the film, including both an extended intro and a second verse edited out of the single version.

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