The more I think about it, the more I love Raising Arizona. The characters, the lines, the situations, the setting and yes, even the music. It all works together masterfully.

H.I. (Nicholas Cage at his best), a perpetual convenience store robber marries Ed (Holly Hunter), a police officer. They want to have children but she can’t and they can’t adopt because of his record. At the same time, the wife of a rich man named Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson) has five babies at once and so H.I. and Ed decide to steal one from them, because surely they have more than they can handle.

Living in a trailer home in a classic portrayal of white trash America, H.I. and Ed struggle to provide a wholesome environment for their new child. First, Gale (John Goodman) and Evelle (William Forsythe) break out of jail and come to live with H.I. for awhile. H.I. and Ed also have to deal with being chased by police after stealing diapers for the baby and the greater threat of Leonard Smalls (Randall Cobb), a giant motorcyclist who’s perpetually covered in black and wears grenades like jewelry.

I love these characters, especially H.I. Clueless and self-serving while still fundamentally kind and good hearted. I love his dreams. He wants the best and hopes for the best even though he’s always going about it in the wrong ways. I love the fabled slant in Raising Arizona, which the music underscores, to tell us this is a sort of legend – something greater than a simple comedy.

I love the humor. Only the Coen’s seem to be able to manage slapstick to the extreme while staying subtle to the extreme at the same time. I think each side brings out the humor in the other. H.I.’s naïve struggles toward stability become just as funny as Gale’s incessant screaming – which is absolutely hilarious though I still can’t figure out why.

I really do think we can see ourselves in H.I. Maybe he’s just an exaggeration of humanity, constantly hoping for something better while constantly undermining those hopes with foolish behavior. Perhaps we’d all do well to learn the lesson that H.I. and Ed finally learn about seeing the reality in other people. And then, just maybe, we can actually become the people that H.I. dreams of in the end.

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