颠倒乾坤

颠倒乾坤，洛克兄弟用了一美元打赌，将两个截然不同的人对换，差点毁了原本诚实努力的人！剧中白的那个人差点走向歧途其实很真实的，一个从小衣食无忧，突然之间从天堂掉到地狱，这里心里落差是很大的，尤其在加上当时的背景，是很真实的写照，而黑的那个，真的，不得不让人承认，黑人穿西装真的特别有范，这个人的存在，我觉得是为了体现真善美的，即使环境在恶劣，也会存在善良的人。这是一个颠倒，另一个颠倒，是黑白联手报复洛克兄弟的那场橙子的期货交易。似乎老天都在惩罚恶意的人，环境并没有影响橘子的数量，最后，主导的洛克兄弟成为被主导者，这是第二颠倒！而最后，哥哥对于倒在地上的弟弟没有一点亲情存在，令人不经觉得唏嘘

两位腰缠万贯度资本家为了向诺贝尔奖发起冲击，以1美元为赌资打赌环境对人的影响究竟有多大。一者持环境影响论观点：认为只要施加适当领导，流浪汉也能成为优秀的管理者；另一者则持环境决定论，认为原生环境已不可避免地在人身上打下烙印。 而围绕这一话题，两个无辜年轻人的命运悄然发生了改变。 鉴于商业电影的性质，影片结尾依然是正义得到声张，主角过上了幸福快乐的日子。而萦绕在我心头的，还是影片一开始提出的那个问题：环境到底多大程度上影响着一个人。 影片中的瓦伦丁无疑是幸运的，被带到了普通人努力很久兴许都不能达到的平台，而他又恰巧具有一些经济天赋，又恰巧被他撞破了这一赌局，成为了后半段电影情节发展的推动者。而现实却是——普通人可能永远没有这个机会，而被“赶出”公司都路易斯也不见得不能换棵大树乘凉。 这是一个不能深聊大话题，残酷程度远多于影片所呈现。

整部片子故事性很强，这很容易让人产生兴趣，且影片运用诙谐夸张对比反讽等多种手法，十分引人眼球。关于最后二人的成功逆转，今日在翻看薛兆丰经济学讲义中找到了答案。 杜克兄弟误信虚假消息认为冷冻橘子汁在未来会上升，于是大量买入，其他投资者跟风买入造成短期内冷冻橘子汁价格飙升的虚假表象。而此时路易斯和比利是作为卖方的，他们选择在价格高点卖出。最后当农业部长公布橘子产量并无影响，也就意味着橘子价格并不会升高，杜克兄弟要付橘子汁的差价以及期货市场的保费，而路易斯和比利此时只需以低价买入以平之前的卖出的高价，这样就赚了其中的差价。 近来看的第二部金融电影，总结下来，是人性贪婪，是博弈。但在公有制为主体，多种所有制共同发展的国家，国家是背后稳定器，不会任由市场人为操控，所以如薛兆丰所见，期货市场不是零和游戏而是正和游戏，重新分配了风险，从而提升大众的幸福感！

A 1980s American satire about capitalism and Reagan-era’s wealth accumulation, John Landis’s TRADING PLACES is an essentially “nature versus nurture” debate transposed to the racial soil of USA’s class echelons. Saliently launching Eddie Murphy’s superstar career, to a lesser extent, reviving Dan Aykroyd’s swindling box office clout, and introducing James Lee Curtis to the mainstream audience for the first time, the film ages well courtesy to the performances and its absorbing tempo and jollification, though on the debit side, in lieu of revealing the sordid side of American Dream, it chooses a conformable coda that leaves today’s audience a less toothsome taste.

In Philadelphia, life circumstances are wantonly swapped between white upper-class commodity broker Louis Winthorpe III (Aykroyd) and Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy), a black street punk, all because of a spontaneous bet of Winthorpe’s bosses, Randolph and Mortimer Duke (Bellamy and Ameche, both exceed audience’s expectation with their time-honored comedic bent and faux-respectability), two wealthy brothers have nothing better to do than callously putting a lid on their competent employee’s posh life. The entrenched racism is flagged up by Louis’s knee-jerking reaction about Billy Ray’s black usurpation, with the former instantly pegging the latter as his sworn enemy. It never occurs to Louis that obviously it should be the Dukes who are answerable for his untoward misery, and his encounter with Ophelia (Curtis) fits the stock a-guy-down-on-his-luck-meets-a-prostitute-with-a-golden-heart scenario. However, an invigorating Curtis does her best against the character’s exploitative designation, gratuitous nudity, that is, and engenders enough pizzazz and intelligence to make Ophelia an eyeful.

Meantime, Valentine’s reaction toward such a ginormous windfall is mined less for his psychological reasoning and dubiety than a colorblind affirmation that he is equally capable. Valentine simply accepts the offer and plays along with a distinctly elevated flair, acting priggish toward his prior bottom-feeding trappings and ever smooth in inhabiting a white-people privileged surrounding, that is until the story teams him up with Louis to exact revenge on the Dukes, to euchre them in their own game. A self-defeating third act, toying with future contracts, commodities trading and other perplexing financial ploys, only reverts to a retrogressive validation of the filthy lucre the films ostensibly sets about to ridicule, which also betrays the sign of the times.

Jettisoning any illusion of progressive profundity, a viewer can satisfactorily enjoy the film as a delightful comedy, Winthorpe’s downward adversity is contrived too on the nose and framing him as a petty pilferer is a cheap invention, but the gorilla joke is goofily off-color and TRADING PLACES is studded with heartily funny cameos (Frank Oz, Jim Belushi, Bo Diddley, among others), not to mention the main cast is uniformly game and enterprising. To my lights, the best parts are Murphy’s street-smart wiles (still far from unbridled but the potential is there) and a pitch-perfect Denholm Elliott as the British butler Coleman, whose loyalty wavers inexplicably but who can always bring subtle amusement and incredibility to the plot’s tickling nonsensicality.

referential entries: Ivan Reitman’s GHOSTBUSTERS (1984, 7.3/10); John G. Avildsen’s ROCKY (1976, 7.5/10); PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES (1987,7.3/10).

Title: Trading Places

Year: 1983

Genre: Comedy

Country: USA

Language: English

Director: John Landis

Screenwriters: Timothy Harris, Herschel Weingrod

Music: Elmer Bernstein

Cinematography: Robert Paynter

Editor: Malcolm Campbell

Cast:

Dan Aykroyd

Eddie Murphy

Jamie Lee Curtis

Denholm Elliott

Ralph Bellamy

Don Ameche

Paul Gleason

Kristin Holby

Robert Curtis-Brown

Jim Belushi

Bo Diddley

Alfred Drake

Frank Oz

Richard Hunt

Tom Davis

Al Franken

Ron Taylor

J.T. Turner

Giancarlo Esposito

Avon Long

Rating: 7.0/10