BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

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.

Robert J. Maxwell This is a rip off but at least it's a shameless rip off. Director DeVito has Professor Billy Crystal talk Danny DeVito the actor into "going to see a Hitchcock movie" if he wants to learn about motives. DeVito sees the scene in "Strangers on a Train" in which the two stars agree, more or less, to swap murders.The reason DeVito wants to learn about motives and how they function in police procedures is that he wants to murder his foul-mouthed, ugly, domineering mother and get away with it. He can't, of course, because he so obviously hates her. But, as in "Strangers on a Train," he decides to swap murders with Crystal. He'll kill Crystal's hated wife in return for Crystal's killing De Vito's mother.It doesn't work out. One thing after another goes wrong. The things that go wrong are supposed to be funny but most of them aren't. There's an abundance of slapstick, with people running back and forth in a frenzy, people hiding from others, people falling off ships, people hanging by their heels from a train.DeVito is a smart guy and a clever director sometimes. Anyone who directed the black comedy "The War of the Roses" can't be completely clumsy. But he's pretty awkward here, given to obvious shots of himself approaching the camera pop-eyed and wearing black gloves when attempting to snuff Crystal's wife. It's almost embarrassing.Crystal, too, can be extremely amusing as the ordinary guy swept up into some nightmarish scenario, as he was in "Analyze This!" I'd put off watching this because the trailers all featured the same shot. DeVito and Crystal are at the table. DeVito shovels scrambled eggs into their plates, then hits Crystal over the head with the frying pan. BONK! And Crystal falls down. I figured, "If this is the best it's got, I might as well skip it." It's almost the best it's got.

TOMASBBloodhound Black comedy isn't always an easy sell. Every now and then you get a black comedy that is hugely successful, like Fargo, for example. But usually they don't often find big audiences. People seem to either set their minds for intellectual comedy, or for serious mayhem. There doesn't seem to be a big market for a good mixture of both. Throw Momma From the Train was a fairly decent hit, yet few people seem to remember much about it in this day and age. Danny DeVito just about hit this one all the way out of the park back in 1987.DeVito plays an odd mamma's boy named Owen looking to rid himself of his outrageously overbearing and unpleasant mother whom he still lives with. The mother is played by Anne Ramsey, who passed away shortly after this was released, and she is quite a caricature. She is loud, ugly, rude, and overbearing. Though Owen hardly seems like he could take care of himself, he wants desperately to have his mother offed. He fantasizes about it in some truly weird scenes, but he clearly doesn't have the guts to actually do it himself. That's where Billy Crystal comes in. Crystal plays Larry Donner, Owen's creative writing teacher at a nearby community college. Larry is a paranoid would-be intellectual novelist who claims his ex-wife stole his novel and made millions off it. He is currently trying to write a new one, but cannot even come up with a decent first sentence. "The night was...." Owen hears Larry wish his ex-wife were dead during an outburst at the school cafeteria. And borrowing the idea from Strangers on a Train, Owen decides to travel to Hawai'i and murder Larry's ex-wife. Once it appears he has done so, he expects Larry to return the favor and kill his mother. The resulting action is often quite funny, and even poignant. It's certainly never dull and often full of surprises.The acting is exceptional, even if Ramsey was a bit over the top. Crystal is as good as he can be, and DeVito has always been undervalued as a performer. The film relies on quite a bit of physical comedy which usually works, often painfully so. The film makes use of some truly innovative editing techniques in some scenes, and the off-beat tone is truly refreshing. I have often been critical of the late 1980s as being a time of artistic malaise and down right lazy film-making. Throw Momma From the Train takes chances. Both in how its characters are drawn as well as its general plot. How many comedies revolve around a son having his mother murdered? The film isn't too long, and it is chock full of laughs. Writers are apt to find it more interesting than the general public, but it can still be enjoyed by just about anyone. 9 of 10 stars.The Hound.

gcd70 Danny De Vito shows us here he is definitely, indeed infinitely, a better on screen performer than off. He plays the part of Owen, a miserable would-be writer with a cranky old mother (delightfully played by Anne Ramsey) he would like to see dead. Billy Crystal is Larry, a very frustrated writing teacher who has an estranged wife he feels the same way about. So Owen, after viewing Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train", suggests they swap murders.As director though, De Vito's control is inconsistent as he wastes this clever idea, while his film lurches from the very humorous to the very bland. He and Crystal are okay in the lead roles, but the show belongs to Anne Ramsey as the cantankerous Mrs. Lift.Saturday, June 20, 1992 - Video