Hulu Classic Kidnapping Comedy From Legendary Directors Is Worth Seeking Out

Nicolas Cage narrates with a Southwestern drawl to set up Raising Arizona’s premise at the beginning of and throughout the film to highlight some key plot points. I’m not normally fan of the “exposition dump,” but it works in this context because it gets all of the nitty-gritty out of the way so we can set off on this misguided adventure with everything we need to know going into its first act.

Through a montage of mugshots, we learn that Cage’s Herbert I “Hi” McDunnough is a habitual criminal who has spent most of his adult life in and out of prison. When he gets released from prison (hopefully for the last time), he learns Edwina (Holly Hunter), or “Ed,” has been dumped by her fiancé, and he proposes to her on the spot. Hi and Ed have established a friendly rapport over the years, and they’re both available, so why not?

Hi and Ed want to start a family, but there are a couple of obstacles that they need to overcome in Raising Arizona. First of all, Ed is infertile, so she can’t rear a child of her own. Adoption is also off the table because of Hi’s past incarcerations.

When the couple learns about Nathan Arizona’s (Trey Wilson) newly born quintuplets, they decide that the wealthy furniture salesman wouldn’t mind parting ways with one of his five children. That’s the nicest way for me to say that Hi and Ed decide to kidnap a baby.

They successfully kidnap Nathan Junior, but matters get further complicated when Hi’s former cellmates, Gale (John Goodman) and Evelle (William Forsythe) Snoats, break out of prison and need a place to stay while they figure out their next moves.

Meanwhile, Raising Arizona continues to introduce complications in the form of a ruthless bounty hunter named Leonard Smalls (Randall “Tex” Cobb). Smalls is determined to find Nathan Junior and sell him on the black market after the now-father-of-four rejects his offer to return the child to him for $50,000. Not only do Hi and Ed have to deal with Hi’s old cellmates and a bounty hunter, they’re trying to keep the identity of their child a secret while thumbing through parenting books because they have no clue how to raise a child.

What’s more, Hi can’t keep his impulses in check, and he’s getting the itch to fall back into his old ways after trying to live on the straight-and-narrow.

Every single mishap in Raising Arizona moves the story forward at a relentless pace, and the Coen brothers jam-pack every single scene with so many gags that you need to watch this movie at least three times to take it all in. While the humor isn’t necessarily complex or high-brow, you’ll still find yourself laughing so hard that you’ll miss lines of dialogue on your first viewing. In the typical Coen brothers fashion, every loose end resolves by the time Raising Arizona’s third act concludes, which is an impressive feat when you consider how many moving parts its plot has.

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When people ask me to describe Raising Arizona, I will without hesitation call it a live-action cartoon of the highest order. From its premise to its characters, there’s nothing about this movie that’s not fun. You can stream Raising Arizona in all of its idiotic glory on Hulu, and it comes with strong recommendations that you do so as soon as possible.