Rat Raceis a 2001 comedy film directed by Jerry Zucker , written by Andy Breckman , and stars a ensemble cast , including Rowan Atkinson , Whoopi Goldberg , Cuba Gooding, Jr. , Jon Lovitz , Lanei Chapman , Seth Green , Kathy Najimy , Dave Thomas , Vince Vieluf , John Cleese , Breckin Meyer , Kathy Bates , Wayne Knight , Dean Cain , and Amy Smart .

The main plot revolves around six teams of people who are given their task of racing 563 miles from a Las Vegas casino to a Silver City, New Mexico train station, where a storage locker contains two million dollars. The first team to reach the locker wins and gets to keep the money. The film has a similar plot toIt's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad WorldandScavenger Hunt.

Donald Sinclair, the eccentric owner of The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas , devises a new game to entertain the high rollers who visit his hotel. Six special tokens are placed in the casino's slot machines, and the winners of them are gathered together and told that $2 million in cash is hidden in a duffel bag in a train station locker in Silver City, New Mexico . They are told they must compete in a no-holds-barred race to get there first and claim the money. Each winner is given a key that will open the locker and they are sent on their way. What they do not know is that Sinclair's wealthy patrons are placing bets on who will win the race.

The players alter their modes of transport over the course of the film and encounter different problems along the way:

Petty con artists Blaine and Duane Cody sabotage an airport radar to keep everyone else from using a plane since they couldn't get tickets, losing their truck in the process. Later on they decide to make a copy of their key to double their chances of winning. However, the man who owns the hardware store overhears their discussions about their plans and then steals the key for himself. The brothers chase him as he tries to escape first in his truck and then in a hot air balloon . They get the key back and leave the locksmith and a cow to float away dangling from the balloon. The brothers crash into a monster truck rally after being distracted by an attractive woman with many piercings, are almost hit by a truck, and steal one of the trucks to complete the journey.

After they cannot fly, Merrill Jennings and her long-lost mother, Vera Baker, rent a car, and meet a squirrel seller. After they refuse to buy a squirrel, she gives them bogus directions that send them careening down a pit in their rented Dodge Intrepid – and crashing into many other cars of people who met a similar fate. After wandering around the desert for a long time, they steal a rocket car which is being used to break the landspeed record and race across the desert at supersonic speed until the car runs out of fuel. The women stumble into a bus of mental patients (being mistaken as such because of their dizziness and babbling about squirrels and a rocket car) until they reach Silver City, choking the bus's leader until they get off.

Disgraced football referee Owen Templeton is left stranded in the desert by a vengeful taxi driver after he lost a bet thanks to Owen's mishap involving a coin toss during an NFL football game. After a long time stuck in the desert, Owen finds a bus full of women going to anI Love Lucyconvention in Santa Fe, New Mexico , and convinces the driver to give him his clothes (making up various excuses about needing them to help his wife give birth) but after a series of mishaps, the bus crashes thanks to an incident involving the cow stuck on the balloon (used by the hardware guy in the Codys' story). The women accidentally roll the spare tire away, and Owen reveals he is not a bus driver before fleeing from the women, using a horse to reach Silver City.

The Pear Family, consisting of Randy, his wife Bev, and their children Jason and Kimberly, visit a " Barbie Museum" on the way, actually dedicated to Nazi Klaus Barbie , and managed by a gang of neo Nazi Skinheads. Their car is damaged by the passing Codys, so they steal Adolf Hitler 's Mercedes-Benz car. Randy accidentally insults a group of female bikers, after he burns his middle finger on the car's cigarette lighter, who attack the car and send it crashing into a rally of World War II veterans. Resembling Hitler due to a makeup smudge on his face and having burned his tongue , Randy wanders to a podium and shouts out gibberish, which resembles German at the veterans, and insults them further by giving them the finger while trying to explain what happened. After just barely escaping after one of the veterans tries to shoot him, Randy explains what happened to his family. After arriving at a diner, and narrowly avoiding the pursuing skinheads, Randy explains the reasons for the "road trip". Because they don't want to continue the race, he secretly drugs them with chocolate milkshakes that are spiked with Sleep-EX and loads them into a truck to complete the journey.

Nick Schaffer, an attorney, at first chooses not to participate but changes his mind when he is offered a ride by helicopter pilot Tracy Faucet; the Codys' earlier actions have grounded the planes, but with helicopters still operational. On the way, they pass over the house of Tracy's boyfriend only to discover he is cheating Tracy off with his "ex-girlfriend". An enraged Tracy then goes insane and attacks and her now ex-boyfriend, dropping things out of the helicopter onto his brand new Dodge Ram (which Tracy claims is hers since she paid for it), and then take the truck with Nick after an epic chase burns out the chopper's engine. They both later siphon gas from a police car which later tries to chase the Codys who were speeding after the hardware guy, and also encounter an uncooperative mechanic who attempts to extort $500 from them for patching up their radiator. After calling the mechanic's actions "un-Christian" and him yelling to God to do something about it as a joke, the rocket car with Merrill and Vera passes by. The car's supersonic speed causes the man's rickety gas station to collapse. Nick and Tracy take the car without any more incidents the rest of the way.

Enrico Pollini, a narcoleptic Italian, falls asleep in the hotel lobby at the start but later hitches a ride in an ambulance after it knocks him over, its driver, Zack Mallozzi, who is delivering a preserved heart to El Paso, Texas , hopes to get away before he is sued by hotshot lawyer Gloria Allred . On the way, he and Enrico look at the heart, but it is accidentally dropped out of the ambulance. They find the heart but fear it is damaged after a stray dog takes it by accident, and the dog gets electrocuted after running into an electric fence. Panicking, Zach decides that they should find a 'drifter' and kill him for his heart, and chooses Enrico, but the latter flees onto a passing train, and the heart is fixed when Zach touches the fence, causing the heart to start beating again. Enrico gives his key to a baby to play with, but has to retrieve it from the babys diaper when the train nears Silver City, and is thrown off when mistaken for a pedophile. He finds himself in the station where the money is, but falls asleep just before he can open the locker, although his key is actually in the locker.

The other players arrive and discover the money missing, stolen by Sinclair's assistant, Grisham, and a hooker named Vicky who was involved in an earlier bet by the high-rollers. The hardware guy and his cow land on their getaway vehicle, resulting in the money getting swept away with the balloon, and causing their car to crash. Sinclair and his betters take a plane to Silver City, where Sinclair makes another bet between the group by making the pilot swerve the plane erratically, causing one of the men to eventually vomit and another to win the bet. The players use a tour bus to pursue the money, finding it at a charity concert hosted by Smash Mouth , and end up accidentally donating it all to charity, but decide to leave the matter alone after seeing some of the children the money will be helping (although Duane had to be severely coaxed into giving up his share when he initially didn't want to donate it). Sinclair appears, and Nick, guessing what he and his patrons have been up to, tells the audience that Sinclair and his friends will double whatever total of money is given to the charity in question in retaliation for all the mess he has put the entire gang into.

The film ends with Sinclair, knowing that if he breaks his "promise" to the foundation he will become very unpopular, throwing a tantrum and weeping at how much money he's about to lose (over US$ 5 million) while the players dance, sing and perform, as Smash Mouth performs their hit single " All Star ".