24 Dec 2019
Trading Places (1983)
Eddie Murphy once topped a list of Hollywood's most overpaid actors (calculated by dividing box office takings by the actor's fee) but he certainly earnt his corn in Trading Places, the Eighties role-swap comedy that always cheers me up. Murphy, as penniless huckster Billy Ray Valentine, and Dan Ackroyd, as monied Wasp Louis Winthorpe III, end up swapping lives after their fortunes are made and dashed by dastardly millionaires the Dukes.
There are countless preposterous mishaps and misunderstandings as Billy Ray makes it big on the stockmarket and Louis, dressed as a department store Santa, is reduced to concealing a stolen fish in his false beard. Eventually, of course, the good guys win out and the Dukes are suckered by a scheme even more ingenious than theirs - all in time for Christmas.
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