I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

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.

Throw Momma from the Train (1987) *** (out of 4) Dark comedy is a take off Hitchcock's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. A writer (Billy Crystal) has his idea for a book stolen by his ex-wife who turns it into a major hit. He wishes he could kill her but his student (Danny DeVito) takes his talk serious and kills her in exchange that the writer kills his nagging mother (Anne Ramsey). With the talent involved this film should have been a whole lot better and even though there are countless flaws, in the end I can't help but find the film mildly entertaining, if disappointing. I think the biggest problem with the film is that there's way too much plot for a 88-minute comedy. We have so many double-crosses, plot twists and side plots that you could take them and use them in two or three movies. I think the film would have been a lot better had some of the plot been taken out and replaced with more laughs, which is one thing this comedy could have used more of. What does work is the chemistry between Crystal and DeVito. Both men really dig into their roles and turn in fine performances but they are both letdown by the screenplay. One of the first scenes involves Crystal suffering from writer's block and trying to complete the same line over and over. This scene goes on way too long. What does work is the early banter between the two actors as DeVito's character is constantly showing up at bad times wanting to know if Crystal enjoyed his bad stories. There's a very funny sequence when the two are discussing the so called "plan" that was only in DeVito's mind. Ramsey, who many will remember from THE GOONIES, turns in a nice, foul-mouthed performance and you can't help but love to hate her. Her relationship with DeVito, while mean-spirited, is also quite touching in a few scenes. Again, there's a lot wrong with this film but I think the three leads have enough going to carry the weak screenplay a lot further than it deserves.

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.

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