One of my favorite old movies. I am watching it for the fourth time! The way Nicholas Cage narrates and delivers his lines in such a serious way as if he thought himself to be an intellectual person, when he is clearly not! Holly Hunter speaks the same. Also the Cohen brothers are really into crazy hairstyles for the men in a lot of their movies. I am thinking of George Clooney in “Brother, Where Art Thou”!

I really like most of the Coen Bros filmography but I just can't get into this one. It's just hicks doing and saying dumb stuff and then awkward pauses seemingly for the audience to know when to laugh. I like some of the stylistic camera work, but this is just a movie I never want to go back to.

I didn’t laugh all that much, but I still enjoyed it a lot.

I get why the movie has endured (besides the enjoyably excessive style the performances are all appropriately maximalist) and while it is isn't my personal favorite of the Coen's work it is still a strong comedy.

When you think about it... it's strange that Nicolas Cage hasn't really done more comedy in his career. His manic, over-acting style certainly lends itself to some humorous outlandish performances that are so extreme that you can only laugh at them. Here, in an early Coen brothers film, Cage plays 'Hi' - a petty small town criminal who tries to change his ways when he marries a local police woman 'Ed' (Holly Hunter). Don't think too closely about how an officer of the law could be so easily attracted to such a loser and just get to the part where they find they can't have children. Therefore, they decide to kidnap one of five babies a local wealthy businessman has recently fathered. Yeah, it's all not quite as 'believable' as some of the Coen brothers' later films, but, if you just allow yourself to go with it, you'll certainly have some fun. Of course Cage overacts, but then so do many other characters in the film, all of which mainly relying on behaving like one stereotype or another. John Goodman in on the cast list, but possibly comes across as a little underused when considering what else he could have brought to the script. Besides the cast and the completely ludicrous plot, I think 'Raising Arizona's' main selling point is its weirdness. It's certainly not a 'conventional' film and you really will wonder where it's going at times. The crazy direction mixed with the sheer randomness of the screenplay really does make it compulsive viewing and you'll soon find yourself being able to forgive the bits in the story that are slightly less believable than the rest (mainly certain 'character motivation choices' here and there). There are moments that will definitely make you laugh out loud and if you're looking for a film that feels like a B-movie with an A-list cast, or just a fan of the Coen brothers and what to see where they've 'evolved' from, then definitely give this one a go. It's certainly held up over time and is worth a watch every now and again.

Not a bad movie, not a masterpiece. Just a good, fun movie that's a great watch.

This is nowhere near a mature film, but it is one of the Coen's most simply entertaining. Raising Arizona is a hilarious absurdist comedy, with one of the craziest premises and set-ups I've ever seen in a film. This could've easily been a tiring movie, but it's charm and unique style makes Raising Arizona a great film.

Their lawless years are behind them. Their child-rearing years lay ahead... Raising Arizona is a 1987 American crime comedy film written, directed and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen 👶 Not bad, but not my favourite either 😐 Meh, it passed the time. Just. 😐 👍🏼👎🏼 Disliked the basic premise which coloured the rest of the movie… When a childless couple--an ex-con and an ex-cop--decide to help themselves to one of another family's quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated.

Joel and Ethan Coen’s best! The single most quotable movie ever made. “Are you gonna breast feed him ma’am? You appear to be capable.” If you don’t get this movie maybe you should stick with Beavis and Butthead.

You either get this or you don't. Those who don't are on the wrong side of history.

The Coen Brothers direct Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter This is a fast-paced farce about an unlikely pair who go to extreme lengths to have a child When an incompetent robber marries a policewoman after he gets out, they discover that they are infertile In order to appease his wife's longings for a child, the man steals one of a set of quintuplets, but mayhem ensues when the child's rich father sends a rabbit-shooting bounty hunter after the kidnappers The Arizona's (the couple that had the several babies) own the biggest furniture sales With one of their children missing is it really up to Hi and Ed to raise it or will they change their minds and call it off? A very short screwball comedy about a couple desperate for a family even if it's not theirs It's purely entertaining especially with the wacky chases involved about this infant You can still feel sympathetic for these forlorn kidnappers A funny and accessible entry by the Coens but still quite introspective

Dumb plot and movie for southerners

The reviews of this movie really overstate it's quality. It's a mid-tier Coen Brothers movie. There's a reason Looney Toons run for about 10 minutes, eventually the thin plots overstay their welcome and don't offer much of a reason for the ridiculousness to continue. It's not that long of a movie and rushes through bits, but I think it should be even more rushed.

I was in high school when I rented this on VHS. For me, it defines the "cult comedy" genre. Perfectly odd. Classically corny.

A cynical, heartfelt, intelligent, and sympathetic comedy that finds its strength in the Coen Brothers' unique direction that ties the film together for an extremely sweet ending as well as a wholesomely winsome and charming movie altogether.

Too many adjectives to describe how awesome this movie is. All performances are wonderful. For me this is the best Coen brothers movie. Simply put : this is one of the finest comedies ever made.

I just rewatched this after many years. It was even better than I remembered. It's plucky, it's got a style about it - lots of laughs. It was perfectly cast and performed and delivered a lot of laughs with a bit of a message about the nuclear family and how... unreal it really is.

Great story, great acting, great comedy!

It is only a personal view, but I prefer the Coen Brothers comedies to their serious or semi-serious films. The postmodernist style of the average Coen movie is a gift to comedy – the visual camera trickery, the constant homage to older movies, the musical rhythm and motifs in the language, and the absence of any truly heroic characters. There are plenty of criminals though, and almost all Coen Brothers movies include a crime gone wrong. One result of this approach is that a Coen Brothers movie usually has a number of remarkable and brilliant scenes (and perhaps a few moments that do not work), but an essentially erratic structure that ensures that the sum of the movie is less than its parts. In a comedy this does not matter at all. The hero of the story is Herbert McDunnough (Nicholas Cage), but he is usually known as Hi (the initials of his forenames). Hi sports an unruly hairstyle which grows crazier when he is feeling stressed. Hi makes a living by robbing convenience stores. Indeed he is arrested often enough to win the affections of the police photographer, Edwina (Holly Hunter). The two unlikely lovers finally get married, and need to make do with what they can find to live on – staying in a desert mobile home while Hi makes his living by drilling holes into sheet metal. However there is a source of unhappiness in the household. Ed wants a child, but she is barren. Hi's criminal record means that adoption is out of the question too. Into the picture come the Arizonas. Hi and Ed see a television report about the furniture magnate Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson). Arizona is the seller of bathroom and bedroom fixtures, and now the proud father of the Arizona Quints, five babies born in one day, and living in the kind of posh house where even their cot has the quintuplets' names written over each of their beds. Ed decides that since the Arizonas have so many children, and the McDunnoughs have none that the solution to their problem is for the McDunnoughs to steal one of the Arizona Quints and raise the child as their own. Hi obligingly steals Nathan Jr (at least we think so), and the couple set to the task of raising Arizona. There is another more bizarre threat to the McDunnoughs, and this comes in a more fantastical form which raises the film out of the realm of charming family comedy, and into a more surreal world. He drives a motorbike, and destroys small animals and flowers with guns and grenades. However when we finally get to hear him speak he has a surprisingly weak, nasal voice and his name is Leonard Smalls (Randall "Tex" Cobb). In fact he is a bounty hunter committed to returning Nathan Jr to his parents, or possibly handing the baby over to anyone who offers him more money. Comedy is hard to describe. If you have seen these scenes, you might appreciate why they are funny. If not, you will have to watch the film and decide for yourselves. Additional humour can be found in the dialogue, which the Coens intended to be a mixture of southern dialect, Bible quotes and lines from the supposed reading material of the characters. Raising Arizona is a Coen Brothers movie that has the lightest of touches, and even the best Coen works tend to put style over content. The artistry lies in the musical language and technical wizardry that goes into the making of the films, and not in their subject matter, which is often insubstantial. While there is no special message or meaning in Raising Arizona, there is perhaps a mood. It was made in the 1980s when acquisitive capitalism was being glorified more than in any previous generation. While one part of society was increasing and amassing more wealth than it could ever need, another part of society was being left behind, and was finding it hard to make an honest living. Hi belongs to the latter group. He tries to make ends meet by resorting to crime. At the top of the financial ladder are the Arizonas, a rich couple with Quints. One might almost see the babies as a symbol of their wealth. Hi and Ed have little money, are infertile and are excluded from adoption. The Arizonas have more money than they can spend, and now more babies than they can handle too. I do not consider that Raising Arizona is intentionally offering an indictment of widening equality gap of the 1980s, but the Coens were aware of it and had their own beliefs about it, some of which leak out onto the screen. Raising Arizona reflects the Reagonomics of the 1980s just as The Big Lebowski takes place against the background of the Gulf War in the 1990s. I wrote a longer appreciation of Raising Arizona on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/raising-arizona-1987/

I used to watch this movie quite a lot when I was a teenager. It still holds up all these years later. Still a really good movie. The cast is great, and it is just this really odd, but amazing movie.