Danny DeVito, the Rumpelstiltskin of American comedy, takes a tumble in his directorial debut with an shaming remake of Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train.” The teeny auteur turns the assassinate-swapping thriller into a dispirited black comedy, “Throw Momma From the Train.” Cured yet, just throw the whole thing in vanguard of a subway and assumption it gets dragged a couple of miles.
DeVito plays a slightly dim momma’s boy in a departure from the cantankerous troll that served him so well in “Ruthless People.” Here he is sweet, docile and dull as Owen, a middle-aged mouse abused by his greasy-haired hag of a Momma (Anne Ramsey). While removing wax from Momma’s ear, Owen dreams of skewering her with scissors, but he’s just too nice for that.
Crystal has a low-key role as Larry, a whiny novelist who has had writer’s block ever since his ex-wife stole his book and soared to the top of the best-seller list. He spends most of his time trying to finish the first sentence of a new book: “The night was … Moist. Hot. Hot and wet. Humid.”
To make ends meet, he teaches writing to a class of brain-dead losers. Among them is Owen, a would-be mystery writer, and Larry suggests that Owen hone his skills by studying “Strangers on a Train.” Owen misunderstands and sneaks off to murder Larry’s ex, assuming that Larry will reciprocate by smothering Momma — à la Robert Walker and Farley Granger in “Strangers.” Soon Larry is wanted for his wife’s murder, hiding out with Owen and Momma in their rat-infested house. Slapstick ensues.
The story becomes a fairy tale of impotence, all tricked out with choo-choo trains and Hitchcockian camera angles. Owen plays with his toy trains; Larry and his girl (the delightful Kim Greist) nuzzle in a little locomotive; later she reads to him from “The Little Engine That Could.” But this is The Little Train That Couldn’t.
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