Herbert I. McDunnough, known to one and all as H.I. or 'Hi' is a repeat offender who specialises in robbing convenience stores; each time he is arrested and sent to prison his picture is taken by police photographer Edwina 'Ed' McDunnough; they talk and gradually he falls in love with her. After being released from another spell in jail he proposes to her and they marry. She is desperate for a child but is infertile and his record makes adoption impossible... then a solution presents itself; a news report about the 'Arizona Quints' gives Ed an idea. They kidnap one of them! If that didn't complicate their lives enough two of Hi's prison mates break out and expect him to house them for a few days and a bounty hunter dubbed the 'Loner Biker of the Apocalypse' is searching for whoever took the baby.

This comedy from the Cohen Brothers is a lot of fun from start to finish. The fact that it is going to be a comedy is apparent as soon as we see Nick Cage, who as Hi, sports hilarious 'bad hair'; he is great in the role and Holly Hunter is equally good as Ed. These are two likeable lead characters despite the fact that they have stolen a baby. The story has many over the top aspects but they never quite get too silly. There are lots of genuinely laugh out loud moments throughout the film and plenty of great characters as well as Hi and Ed. Most notable of these are escapees Gales and Evelle Snoats and Leonard 'Loner Biker of the Apocalypse' Smalls. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to anybody wanting a good laugh; if you are a fan of the Cohen Brothers it is a must see.

"Raising Arizona" has the distinction of being the gateway movie for me from the Coen Brothers. After seeing it, I was pumped and ready to see more...I loved it that much!

The story is weird and sounds awful...but it actually pretty funny. A very dumb young couple have been trying in vain to have children. Unfortunately, it just ain't happening. At about the same time, a nearby family has quintuplets....and Hi (Nicholas Cage) gets the insane idea to steal one of these five babies. After all, the family would still have four more...and they wouldn't miss just one. Plus, it's HARD to raise five infants, so they might be doing the family a favor by taking the kid! Unfortunately, it ends up unleashing the powers of darkness in the form of the Biker of the Apocalypse...as well as a couple dirtbags who recently escaped from prison!

This is a film much like the Coens' "Hudsucker Proxy"...so weird, so unconventional and so funny that you cannot adequately describe the film in words. You just have to see it! Suffice to say, the movie is highly original, extremely funny and just plain weird!

This was a mildly amusing second effort from the Coen Brothers, not as good for my money as "Barton Fink", "Fargo" or "The Big Lebowski", but I guess you have to start somewhere. The title itself is a bit curious, you really have to see the picture to understand it. I could explain it here but you'd forget all about it. The story winds up with somewhat of an anti-climactic ending because the principals, H.I. (Nicolas Cage) and Ed (Holly Hunter) simply return the baby they kidnapped from the Arizona Family. John Goodman and William Forsythe provide some understated humor as ex-con pals of H.I. who overstay their welcome; their jailbreak scene would have made more sense if Goodman wasn't shouting at the top of his lungs just outside the prison walls. Similarly, the drama surrounding baby Nathan's kidnapping would have been more profound if Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson) knew which one of his sons was missing, and if Mrs. Arizona didn't wind up missing in action during the second half of the story. Tex Cobb provides some entertaining interludes as the lone biker of the Apocalypse, on the trail of the missing tyke and mindlessly blowing away anything in his path. Personally, I couldn't figure out how Harry, Barry, Larry, Garry and Nathan Jr. knew their place in the crib.