Ruthless People

Beverly Hills fashion tycoon Sam Stone despises his wife, Barbara, having married her for her family wealth, and plans to murder her so he can inherit her $15 million[lower-alpha 1] fortune and retire with his mistress Carol. He returns home armed with chloroform, but finds Barbara is missing and receives a call from her abductor, demanding $500,000 for her return and threatening to kill her if the police or media are involved. Hoping to get Barbara killed, Sam deliberately ignores the demands.

The abductors, Ken and Sandy Kessler, are a lower-class couple targeting Sam because he built his business using the Kesslers' life savings and fashion designs he stole from Sandy. They detain Barbara in their basement but she proves difficult to control, and Sandy feels guilty about their actions. Carol, intending to financially blackmail Sam, sends her lover Earl to film Sam at the location from which he intended to dispose of Barbara, but, unaware of Sam's appearance, Earl unwittingly films a man having sex with a prostitute, mistaking her screams for Barbara dying. Without watching the tape, Carol forwards a copy to Sam who assumes it is a seductive birthday present. Carol misinterprets his lewd comments as a threat and goes into hiding with Earl.

Bored and overweight, Barbara begins following television exercise programs. She is eventually overjoyed to realize she has lost 20 pounds (9 kg) and bonds with Sandy after being impressed by her fashion ideas and dress designs, in which she now can fit. Meanwhile, Ken repeatedly drops the ransom price, eventually reaching $10,000, but Sam refuses to pay and encourages Ken to kill Barbara. Carol sends another copy of the tape to police chief Henry Benton, unaware he was the man being filmed, hoping to incriminate Sam and get him arrested. Although Ken is confronted by the police as a suspect based on tire tracks at the Stone resident, Benton has Sam investigated and arrested following the discovery of the chloroform and photos of him with Carol.

Realizing he is incapable of being a ruthless criminal, Ken returns home to collect Sandy and flee to Mexico. He learns that Sandy has released Barbara and they want to work together to develop and sell Sandy's fashion designs. The Bedroom Killer, a notorious local serial killer, invades their home and confronts them and Barbara as she returns, leading to an altercation in which he dies after falling down the basement stairs. Realizing that Sam wanted her dead and having learned of his affair, Barbara collaborates with Ken and Sandy to take revenge by blackmailing him for his entire personal fortune worth over $2.2 million.[lower-alpha 2] After being bailed out of jail, Sam reluctantly collects the ransom in a briefcase, desperate to prove his innocence in Barbara's disappearance. Carol finally views the tape and, realizing Earl's mistake, reconnects with Sam to learn when the ransom handover will take place and that the police, now distrustful of Sam, will not accompany him.

Earl ambushes a masked Ken and Sam at the exchange, but they are surrounded by scores of police, and Earl is arrested. Ken warns the police that Barbara will be killed if they try to stop him, and drives off followed by a police convoy. Cornered, he drives off the end of the Santa Monica Pier and seemingly drowns. The police recover the body of the Bedroom Killer, disguised as Ken, from the car but are unable to locate the ransom money. Despite his loss, Sam is elated that Barbara must be dead until she arrives on the pier, identifies the Killer as her abductor, and throws Sam into the water. Elsewhere, Ken emerges from the ocean in scuba gear, carrying the ransom money, and celebrates with the waiting Sandy and Barbara.

• 
  Danny DeVito
  (pictured in 2019)
• 
  Bette Midler
  (pictured in 1990)
• 
  Judge Reinhold
  (pictured in 1994)
• 
  Helen Slater
  (pictured in 2009)

• Danny DeVito as Sam Stone
• Bette Midler as Barbara Stone
• Judge Reinhold as Ken Kessler
• Helen Slater as Sandy Kessler
• Anita Morris as Carol Dodsworth
• Bill Pullman as Earl Mott
• William G. Schilling as police chief Henry Benton
• Art Evans as Lt. Bender
• Clarence Felder as Lt. Walters
• J. E. Freeman as Bedroom Killer
• Gary Riley as Heavy Metal Kid
• Phyllis Applegate as Loan officer

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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