#19: Honeymoon In Vegas (1992)

You know that film where the bloke goes to a Las Vegas casino, gets into financial difficulties, and is then offered a way out which involves the love of his life having to go off with an extremely wealthy man who’s taken a shine to her?

No, not Indecent Proposal. The other one with almost exactly the same plot, Honeymoon In Vegas.

Which was released a year before Indecent Proposal, to be fair — although Indecent Proposal was based on a 1988 book. This is one of those strange bits of Hollywood ‘serendipity’ that happens every so often — in the summer of 1998 you could choose to see the Earth either destroyed by or saved from an asteroid depending on which blockbuster you went to see. Explanations that have been posited for this phenomenon range from the existence of a collective Hollywood unconscious to coked-up film executives not knowing when to shut up about the projects they’re working on.

Anyway, of these two, Indecent Proposal was the one with the cultural mileage — the basic gist is well known enough that you can write gags about it and most people will get it regardless of whether they’ve actually seen the (fairly mediocre) film — e.g. the episode of Peep Show where Jeremy is offered £530 for a night with his girlfriend.

But Honeymoon In Vegas is quite good — it’s a sweeter, funnier take on the idea — the rich guy (James Caan) is more cartoonishly villainous (he creates the couple’s financial trouble, rather than merely taking advantage of), but he’s after the girl (Sarah Jessica Parker) because she’s the double of his dearly departed wife.

The central dilemma of Indecent Proposal is more or less sidestepped — this is rom-com territory with a happy ending visible from deep space. But the charm is in how it gets to that ending — the core of the film follows Jack (Nicolas Cage) as he desperately tries to catch up with his fiancee, who has been whisked off to Hawaii by the nefarious Tommy. It’s very much comedy of frustration as he’s waylaid at every turn by various characters including a time-wasting taxi driver (played by Pat Morita off of The Karate Kid), a showtune-singing local “Chief”, an obnoxious airline passenger and even the local police. Their eventual reunion is enabled by his joining a team of skydiving Elvis impersonators, for goodness’s sake.

The one bum note is that Betsy, the fiancee, is a bit underwritten — when it looks like she might actually ditch Jack altogether and marry the rich rotter, the turn of the narrative cog is a little too obvious and the characterisation loses credibility. Although she does in the end get to show a bit of agency, snapping out of it and escaping the marriage the baddy is practically forcing her into, Betsy ends up too little of a character, too much of a trophy.

Honeymoon In Vegas isn’t by any means a lost gem, but it’s a pleasant enough watch with just enough quirks to keep things ticking along. And, as ways to end a farce go, skydiving out of a plane dressed as Elvis has got to be, quite literally, up there.

THE NUMBERS

2 — Jack tells Betsy that they’ll be married in 2 hours, right after a quick game of poker. It’s this game that results in her having to go away with Tommy to ‘pay off’ Jack’s gambling debt.

4 — The opening sequence of the film, in which Jack’s mother makes him promise not to get married, before promptly carking it, take place 4 years before the main story. (The implication being that the events of the film are part of a curse — a result of him planning to break his vow.)

20 — Jack attempts to win the money he needs to buy Betsy out of the deal by playing roulette all his remaining money on number 19, which ‘feels good’. 20, which he’d earlier considered, actually wins.

21 — When Jack needs to get to Hawaii, he’s held up because the man at the front of the queue to buy tickets is asking a series of interminable questions in an attempt to find the cheapest way to fly to his nephew’s 21st birthday. The man in question is Ben Stein, who is good fun when he turns up in cameos like this (he’s the “Anyone? Anyone?” teacher in Ferris Bueller), and less good fun when he’s writing speeches for Nixon, opposing abortion, denying evolution and just generally being an appalling human.

30 — The Elvises skydive from 3000 feet. The film is steeped in Elvis — the soundtrack is mainly cover versions of Elvis songs, and the Las Vegas scenes have Elvis impersonators wandering around throughout. Possibly this was part of the attraction to the role for Cage, a fan, who’d only recently channelled the King for his role in Wild At Heart. He was also once married to Elvis’s daughter (albeit for 108 days), which sets a new bar for fanboy dedication.

38 — Tommy’s first wife (who apparently looked like Betsy — Sarah Jessica Parker even plays her when we briefly flash into his memories) sadly died at the age of 38. I mean, not that sadly, it’s only a film.

THE RESULT

One number. Not brilliant, but better than the nothing I’ve got for the past 3 films. Just 5 more numbers and I’ll be a millionaire!

NEXT TIME ON NICOLAS CAGE:

An episode of Saturday Night Live.

Oh.

Good.