Throw Momma from the Train (1987)
Directed by Danny DeVito
Larry Donner, an author with a cruel ex-wife, teaches a writing workshop in which one of his students, Owen, is fed up with his domineering mother. When Owen watches a Hitchcock classic that seems to mirror his own life, he decides to put the movie's plot into action and offers to kill Larry's ex-wife, if Larry promises to murder his mom. Before Larry gets a chance to react to the plan, it seems that Owen has already set things in motion.
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Owen, whose interpretation of Strangers on a Train leads him to believe that Larry would like him to kill his wife in return for the prof's disposal of Owen's obscenely senile, tyrannical mother, turns Larry's life (already a mess: ever since his wife stole his first novel, he's suffered from writer's block) into an absolute nightmare.
He not only borrows the plot device from Alfred Hitchcock's " Strangers on a Train " for his new comedy, "Throw Momma from the Train," but he even has one of his characters actually go to the movies to study the relevant scene from Hitchcock's 1951 classic.
Danny DeVito, the Rumpelstiltskin of American comedy, takes a tumble in his directorial debut with an embarrassing remake of Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train."
As written by Stu Silver (and directed by DeVito), "Momma" is a goofy tribute to Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 "Strangers on a Train" -- the classic in which Robert Walker involves Farley Granger in a "criss-cross" murder.
Loosely inspired by Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, Throw Momma From The Train follows Billy Crystal's Larry, a struggling writer/English teacher, as he's embroiled in a scheme to knock off the abusive mother (Anne Ramsey) of one of his students (Danny DeVito's Owen).
The story is certainly a classic one (even serving as the premise for Danny DeVito’s Throw Momma from the Train (1987)).
"Horrible Bosses" follows the precedent set by such earlier crime-gone-awry comedies as "Ruthless People" (1986), "Throw Momma from the Train" (1987) and "Bottle Rocket" (1996) with gut-busting gusto.
What hurts is that it never takes off into the wild ozone (like, say, Throw Momma from the Train or The War of the Roses � Danny DeVito really should�ve directed this), nor is it grounded in much reality � it�s a middle-of-the-road farce, too timid to risk losing the audience by making the working lads cold-blooded either in murder or manipulation.
But soon they’re hiring a “murder consultant” (Jamie Foxx) and name-checking Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” (1951) and the Danny DeVito movie “Throw Momma from the Train” (1987) as they plot the demise of their employers.
Like Danny DeVito’s soft but likable satire Throw Momma From the Train—which the movie is generous enough to name-check— Horrible Bosses doesn’t sink its teeth very deeply into its Hitchcockian premise.
His suggestion: Emulate Alfred Hitchcocks Strangers on a Train (or, as one character amusingly notes, Danny DeVitos Throw Momma from the Train) by having each fellow bump off anothers boss, thereby reducing the risk of getting caught.
And Day — whose lines tend to come out in a breathy, spacy squeak — fills in the gaps with his doofy malapropisms: When one of the guys mentions Strangers on a Train, Day thinks he’s talking about “that Danny De Vito movie,” Throw Momma from the Train.
Consider that his previous directing credits include “Throw Momma From the Train” and “ The War of the Roses ,” and you sense that he has some kind of deep mordant fascination for dysfunctional families (the family life in his “ Hoffa ” was not exactly functional, either).
Throw Momma From the Train, The War of the Roses, and Hoffa rank among his best; Death to Smoochy and Envy ... ok, not so much.