Mouse Hunt
 |
| MouseHunt | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Gore Verbinski |
| Written by | Adam Rifkin |
| Produced by | Bruce Cohen Tony Ludwig Alan Riche |
| Starring | Nathan Lane Lee Evans Vicki Lewis Maury Chaykin Ian Abercrombie Christopher Walken |
| Cinematography | Phedon Papamichael |
| Edited by | Craig Wood |
| Music by | Alan Silvestri |
| Distributed by | DreamWorks |
Release date | December 19, 1997 |
Running time | 98 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $38 million |
| Box office | $122,417,389 |
MouseHunt is a 1997 American slapstick/black comedy film, directed by Gore Verbinski, written by Adam Rifkin and starring Nathan Lane and Lee Evans. The story revolves around two brothers who inherit a crumbling old house from their eccentric father, find out that the house is worth millions, and subsequently find themselves locked in a battle of wits with a hyper-intelligent mouse.
It was the first family film to be released by DreamWorks.
Plot
After Lars (Lee Evans) and Ernie Smuntz’s (Nathan Lane) string manufacturer father Rudolf (William Hickey) dies, they go over his will in his now-outdated factory, where they find out that he left them a handful of personal items, one of them being a deed to a debt-ridden mansion.
Representatives from a company called Zeppco International offer to buy the factory from Lars, but he refuses their offer after remembering his father giving him and Ernie his lucky piece of string and made a promise to him to never sell the factory. He is later kicked out of his house by his self-centered, money-hungry wife April (Vicki Lewis) after she discovers this. Meanwhile, Ernie serves Mayor McKrinkle (Cliff Emmich) at his restaurant Chez Ernie, but the mayor soon suffers a heart attack after accidentally consuming a cockroach found in his dish. As a result, Ernie loses his restaurant and home.
He then reconciles with Lars at a diner and they both decide to investigate the mansion, since they do not have anywhere else to live. While sleeping there, they investigate a noise which is attributed to a mouse in the attic. They also find blueprints of the mansion, which show that is was built in 1876 by the famous architect Charles Lyle LaRue. As it was the last house built by him, the mansion is dubbed “The Missing LaRue”. Alexander Falko (Maury Chaykin), a LaRue item collector, attempts to make an offer on the house; Ernie, however, convinces Lars that they will make a lot of money if they restore and auction the mansion.
As the brothers begin renovation on the mansion, the mouse sabotages their efforts, which invokes them to repeatedly kill it, but to no avail. Even acquiring a deranged cat and hiring a pest-control expert (Christopher Walken) fails, the mouse defeating the efforts of both. Meanwhile, Ernie arranges a meeting with the executives from Zeppco, but it never occurs as he flirts with two Belgian hair models and gets hit by a bus after retrieving his hat from the street. On the brothers' answering machine later that night (after another failed attempt to eliminate the mouse), Zeppco withdraws their offer, and the brothers argue about betrayal- Ernie is angry that Lars turned down Zeppco's first offer without consulting his brother first, while Lars is angered that Ernie was willing to sell their father's factory. At the height of their arguments, Lars throws an orange at Ernie, who ducks, and it hits the mouse. The brothers attempt to finish it off with a shovel, but cannot bring themselves to do it. Instead, they put the mouse in a box and mail the box to Fidel Castro in Cuba.
At the mansion’s auction, Lars discovers the mouse’s parcel, which was returned due to insufficient postage, with a hole chewed through it. Lars and Ernie once again try to kill the mouse by putting a hose in a wall and flushing it out. This backfires horribly- the water fills many spaces between the walls of the house. Those present for the auction are washed outside when the walls give way, and despite Ernie's attempts to convince them to stay, they leave as the house collapses.
Convinced that the mouse is finally dead, the brothers return to the factory. The seemingly indestructible mouse has followed them and manages to make a ball of string cheese by dropping a slab of cheese into the wax receptacle. Ernie and Lars end their war with the mouse, taking its suggestion for the future of the factory. The dying factory becomes a success as it is now manufacturing string cheese, with Ernie and the mouse working together to create new blends. The closing scene shows the portrait of Rudolf Smuntz beaming, his lucky piece of string framed and hung beside the portrait, with the quotation "A world without string is chaos."
Cast
- Nathan Lane as Ernie Smuntz
- Lee Evans as Lars Smuntz
- Vicki Lewis as April Smuntz
- Maury Chaykin as Alexander Falko
- Eric Christmas as Ernie and Lars' Lawyer
- Michael Jeter as Quincy Thorpe
- Debra Christofferson as Ingrid
- Camilla Søeberg as Hilde, the Bench Lady
- Ian Abercrombie as Auctioneer
- Annabelle Gurwitch as Roxanne Atkins
- Eric Poppick as The Banker
- Ernie Sabella as Maury, the Cat Care Society Owner
- Frank Welker as Mouse, Catzilla
- William Hickey as Rudolf Smuntz
- Christopher Walken as Caesar, the Exterminator
Reception
The film was a financial success. It was released on December 19, 1997 and opened up in North America at #4 and grossed $6,062,922 in the opening weekend. It wrapped up its run on July 1, 1998 or 27.9 weeks with $61,917,389 in the North American market and $60,500,000 in other territories for a worldwide total of $122,417,389. Its budget was $38 million.
