Richie Rich (1994)

An adventure so big... even the world's wealthiest pre-teenager can't afford to miss it!

Before I begin to overload you with issues about Christmas movies, I wanted to jump into one more mid-90s trash classic and I had to choose an absolute doozy. This one has little elements from other movies we’ve discussed (rich kid movie, features Macauley, directed by Donald Petrie) and somehow never gets mentioned despite starring a bankable 90s megastar and being based on existing intellectual property. Usually this would at the very least keep the name of the movie in discussions years later, but this one slips a lot of people’s minds when I bring it up. I’m guilty of this too. I have seen this movie maybe fifteen or more times and all I can remember about it is that John Larroquette plays an unhinged evil villain and there’s baseball involved.

What are we discussing today? The 1994 film Richie Rich, starring Macauley Culkin as the titular Harvey Comics character and John Larroquette as the evil Laurence Van Dough, who wants to take over Rich’s family’s company to take all their money. This one, as previously noted, was directed by the bad movie GOD Donald Petrie who also gave us The Favor (issue 2) and The Associate (coming in a future issue), as well as some you may have actually seen. This one somehow only broke even, making its budget back at the box office despite having Macauley Culkin in it, which almost seems impossible now. Even his worst movies made bank, but I guess not the one about an impossibly rich family. Regardless, it’s what we’re here to talk about today, so let’s hit play.

Our story is narrated at the beginning by Rich family butler Cadbury (Jonathan Hyde) who gives us a rundown of young Richie Rich’s (Macauley Culkin) life circumstances. He was born disgustingly rich and declared the wealthiest baby in the world. His parents Richard (Edward Hermann) and Regina (Christine Ebersole) Rich are focused on money and industry, Cadbury took on the role of life guide for young Richie in the areas where his parents missed out, even though for extremely wealthy parents they seem to be in his life quite a bit. Richie has a talent for baseball at a young age, and his wealth and status allows him to practice and learn from MLB players.

Richard, the father, has recently purchased a defunct manufacturing plant and saved six hundred jobs. He sends Richie to speak at the press conference as he is busy. The neighborhood “poor kids” with their Noo Yawk accents (despite this being Chicago) “play some ball” nearby and notice Richie, noting he’s the richest kid in the world. Richie looks at the kids longingly, and you can tell he just wants to hang out with some kids (and maybe Cadbury) and play some baseball. Instead, he is tasked with giving a charming speech and nails it, the crowd cheering thunderously.

Richie goes to try and talk to the kids playing baseball but a security agent stops him abruptly, with Cadbury smoothing it over and threatening the agent not to touch Richie. I love Cadbury. Butlers are always the coolest people in these rich kid movies by far. Even The Parent Trap, which was a rich kid movie without being a rich kid movie, the butler and nanny are the coolest characters by far. I wish you didn’t have to be born into a butler family, I think I could do a great job as a butler.

Richie has the privilege of learning science from an actual scientific inventor Professor Keenbean (Mike McShane) who works in the company’s labs, giving him a cutting-edge technical education. At the same time, piece of shit Laurence Van Dough (John Larroquette) the greedy CFO of Rich Enterprises is attempting to swindle the Rich family and the company out of money under the guise of money saving. Rich senior has some generous ideas for how to move company assets while Van Dough is trying to be a cheap asshole and make people lose jobs for no reason, typical slimeball CFO shit. Rich senior mentions that all the family valuables are locked in the family vault and Van Dough lights up, showing us that he clearly wants to steal the family’s valuables.

Claudia Schiffer is Richie’s personal trainer which is lit. They use those turquoise aerobics steppers that were hot in the late 80s and early 90s. Cadbury even participates because he is the coolest. Richie attends an extremely high end school where Ben Stein teaches C-level business participation to preteens sitting at mahogany desks. The kids do 90s business guy shit like get fitted for suits, play with those little golf-putt office setups and discuss white collar crime. Every student has a fax machine. Their gym class involves fencing and exercise bikes. Richie is bored of his rich kid friends who only talk money and wants people to just simply hang with. You know how it is in these rich-kid-with-a-heart-of-gold movies, they just wanna be regular ass kids.

Richie tells Cadbury he just wants to chill but Cadbury tells him that he’s being groomed for a life of wealth and success and must make sacrifices. Richie decides to sacrifice his busy schedule and goes to try and play baseball with the street kids from earlier. They don’t think he’ll be good but Richie makes a bet with the kids on his abilities, putting up $10,000 when they want him to put up $10 because he has no connection to reality. Richie hits a homer through the window of the plant his father just purchased and is thrilled, but the kids seem pissed off that they lost their baseball. Richie tries to invite the kids over to his house but they’re pissed off and tell him to take the money and leave. He argues that he doesn’t want the money but he’s told he doesn’t belong there by Gloria (Stephi Lineburg) and to just take it and go so he and Cadbury leave defeated. Bummer. Poor little Rich kid.

Van Dough plots with corrupt family security chief Ferguson (Cehlcie Ross) to stick a bomb onboard the family plane as it heads off to England for Rich senior to meet with the Queen, so that Van Dough and Ferguson can steal the family’s riches. Regina is concerned with how depressed Richie looks, and Cadbury suggests he and Richie stay behind from the trip so Richie can do something fun. Gloria and the baseball kids are invited over by Cadbury, who surprises Richie with the guests much to Richie’s delight. The kids go absolutely bananas when they find out Richie has his own in-house McDonald’s and I would too. They enjoy Richie’s stuff while Gloria and Richie discuss how they never see their fathers. I love these scenes in rich kid movies because the absolute joy the rich kids get in treating some peers to their everyday life is kinda heartwarming to me. Maybe I’d like rich people more if they acted like kids in movies.

Cadbury bonds with Gloria’s mom Diane (Mariangela Pino) as the kids play tag on ATVs. The kids have an absolute blast and meanwhile, Van Dough is waiting for an absolute blast in the form of the Rich family plane exploding. Onboard the plane, Rich senior has Regina take the helms while he looks for some chocolates to munch on. He uses the recently invented Smellmaster to find the chocolates but it detects an unmarked package with TNT about to detonate. Rich senior manages to throw it out the window before it explodes but it hits the tail of the plane and they are going down. Van Dough toasts to himself as the new chairman of Rich Industries knowing the bomb should have gone off at that moment.

Richie has a scheduled baseball game with the kids the next week but finds out Cadbury wanted to pay the kids to hang out with him. Gloria, who actually enjoyed Richie’s company, rejects the money because she appreciates their friendship. Richie feels betrayed by Cadbury but the moment is interrupted with the news of his parents’ accident. Richie uses the tracking phone he and his father use to contact each other and realizes he is currently undetectable so he worries. Van Dough, meanwhile, finds out from Ferguson that Richie was not on the plane and thus he will not be the new chairman, Richie will. Van Dough and Ferguson realize they have to kill Richie to complete their plan.

Richie and Cadbury watch news coverage of his missing parents and states that he knows they’re alive. Rich senior and Regina are aboard a life raft but haven’t been detected because the plane is sunken. Regina knows it was Van Dough who set them up and know he’ll be after Richie next. They vow to survive, even if only to warn Richie of the danger he is in. At a board meeting, Van Dough I guess is the new chairman because he immediately closes the factory that Rich senior just saved. Richie finds out from Gloria and he and Cadbury go to face Van Dough, who is with a lady friend making innuendo out of an exercise bike. Richie tells Van Dough he has taken a sabbatical from school so he can run the company, much to Van Dough’s annoyance. He tries to argue Richie out but Richie owns the majority of the company stock and Cadbury is his legal representative as Richie is underage so there’s nothing Van Dough can do and Richie immediately keeps the factory open as his first order of business.

We get some nice fish out of water moments as Richie acts like a kid at a board meeting, but Richie is a people’s champ, arguing if anyone should be fired it should be the C-level employees who are overpaid while the true workers usually get the brunt. I say let him run every company. Richie hires the kids as his R&D team at the company’s candy division which is pretty lit. Richie wins over the board of directors with his good attitude and affinity for chocolate milkshakes and cookies and all of Van Dough’s ideas are shot down. Van Dough tells Ferguson they need to finalize their plan. Meanwhile on the life raft, the Riches have gone through their emergency rations of caviar and Dom Perignon. Regina spots her Louis Vuitton suitcase floating nearby their raft.

At a board meeting, Cadbury is arrested for the plane bomb as Ferguson and Van Dough have set him up as a patsy. Richie refuses to believe Cadbury would do this. Van Dough becomes legal guardian of Richie because of this, so all of Van Dough’s evil schemes are about to take hold. This is a dark day for justice and for Richie. In the life raft, the Riches open the suitcase and discover something that will save them. Ferguson installs a security camera in Richie’s room and tells Richie he is not to leave the house for his own safety. Richie confides in the only friend he has left, his dog Dollar, and decides he needs to face Van Dough who is playing pool with Ferguson discussing their plan and how to find the vault. Fortunately Keenbean is using a listening device and overhears this discussion. Keenbean shows Richie an invention that can melt prison bars and they decide to use it to bust Cadbury out. He escapes wearing an early version of the skulls tee that Three Six Mafia made famous in the “Stay Fly” video.

Van Dough and Ferguson corner Keenbean, knowing that he and Richie got Cadbury out of jail and threaten Keenbean’s life if he doesn’t give up the vault location. Wild that the inventor in the lab knows where it is but the CFO doesn’t. Lets you know who you can trust. Richie goes to Gloria’s house to use her computer and they mention their fondness for each other as Diane helps Cadbury recover from his jail fight. Rich senior fixes his communicator and Richie manages to access the communication system and security is alerted that he is not in his room anymore. Keenbean tells Van Dough the vault is voice activated so he can’t get in even if he wants to. Ferguson gets the alert about Richie and goes to find him. Richie locates his father’s coordinates but Ferguson disables the system as it’s about to load and realizes Richie has his father’s voice in a computer which could help them get into the vault.

Richie is off to locate his parents using the Dadlink with Cadbury, Gloria, Diane and the gang in tow. A plane flies over the Riches in their life raft, so they are seemingly saved but I feel like it can’t be that easy. Van Dough in true villain fashion is smoking a cigar and drinking cognac. Richie uses his “Kid-apult” to launch bags of manure onto security guards patrolling the perimeter of the Rich mansion. It’s amazing that security just says “fuck it” and works for Van Dough now and wouldn’t side with the kid they’re paid to protect but oh well, it’s a movie, and it’s a Macauley movie so we want to see the bad guys get hit in the head with stuff. The kids access the mansion and find Keenbean tied up. They free him and Keenbean and Gloria go to divert the guards so the rest of the gang can shut off security cameras and get to Van Dough. Richie and Cadbury manage to get into Richie’s room and Van Dough is waiting for him with his parents tied up. There is no way Van Dough would get away with this in real life. Why does all the Rich family staff just go along with Van Dough? Like what the fuck, he doesn’t pay you.

Van Dough learns from Rich senior that the vault is in Mount Richmore, a Rushmoresque construction in the backyard with the faces of Rich, Regina and Richie carved in. Ferguson puts Richie, Cadbury and the kids in a cage at gunpoint. Realizing Keenbean is nearby trying to save the kids, Ferguson goes to incinerate literal children which there’s no legal way he’d be able to get away with, but Keenbean tars his face and uses a remote control bee to turn the incinerator off. These guys went from greedy employees to heartless child murderers with no cover-up plan or alibi. The 90s sure were wild.

Richie runs off to find his parents. They are with Van Dough at the vault which he has them open by voice. They sing a pretty good duet which accesses the vault. Meanwhile Ferguson has a knife and is on the prowl for Richie. Van Dough is absolutely horrified that the vault is full of trinkets and family heirlooms and that their “riches” are things that matter to them as a family. Van Dough expected a mountain of gold and is pissed so he has his guard go to shoot the Riches. Richie shows up with a fencing sword and Van Dough just fucking shoots him three times in the chest. Looks like Richie has a bulletproof vest on because he’s fine. Rich senior knocks Van Dough over and Regina swings on the other gunman and they go to lock them in the vault as they escape. Van Dough manages to get out in time and is still firing madly. Pretty sure he used up all his bullets.

The Riches go to exit and find themselves on the face of Mount Richmore. Van Dough comes outside firing and he definitely has to be out of bullets by now but okay. Ferguson accesses the laser cutter that’s being used to carve the sculpture and tries to kill the Riches but Cadbury fends him off. Van Dough catches up to the Riches but his gun is finally out of bullets and he nearly falls to his death but runs to an elevator to get to safety as the Riches sit trying to escape. Ferguson keeps shooting the laser but missing. Regina falls and is hanging on for her life. Van Dough has a freshly loaded gun and has the Riches in his sight but Regina makes it to safety before he can shoot. Cadbury and Ferguson are fighting and Ferguson gets the upper hand. He sets the laser to its highest setting and blasts the nose off of Regina’s face on the mountain, giving them an opening for a timely Michael Jackson joke since this is a Macauley movie. Cadbury knocks Ferguson out and grabs the laser, shooting at Van Dough and causing him to hang for his life by a rope as the Riches get to safety. Richie fires Van Dough and Regina punches him in the face as he dangles upside down. Victorious string music plays so we know Van Dough is finally done for.

Sometime later, Richie and the kids are playing team baseball on a diamond in front of the Rich family mansion. Nearby Ferguson and Van Dough are working on the grounds under prison work supervision and I’m really shocked Rich Rich would let that happen at his house. The team wins and everyone loves Richie as Richie’s parents remark that he’s now the richest boy in the world because he has friends, and that’s our movie.

So this one actually has some very good lessons, mostly that friendship and family are the things that really make life worth living, and also that I would trust Richie on the board of directors at every company because he has workers’ rights in mind, and that’s the rarest thing you’ll ever see a billionaire be concerned with. This was a great flick and definitely deserves higher than the 24% it has on Rotten Tomatoes. If you want to find out yourself, you also better be rich because this one isn’t currently streaming anywhere for free and I had to pony up $3.99 for this one on Vudu. Do the same, it’s a wise way to spend your money. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.