From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Twins
Twins movie poster
Directed by	Ivan Reitman
Produced by	Ivan Reitman
Written by	William Davies & William Osborne and Timothy Harris & Herschel Weingrod
Starring	Arnold Schwarzenegger Danny DeVito Kelly Preston Chloe Webb Bonnie Bartlett Tony Jay Marshall Bell
Music by	Georges Delerue Randy Edelman
Cinematography	Andrzej Bartkowiak
Editing by	Donn Cambern Sheldon Kahn
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	December 9, 1988
Running time	105 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$15,000,000 (estimated)
Gross revenue	$111,936,400 (USA)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Twins is a 1988 comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman about unlikely twins (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito) that were separated at birth. The core of the film is the relationship between DeVito's streetwise character and Arnold's Ingenue persona. The original music score was composed by Georges Delerue and Randy Edelman.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, and Hulk Hogan have all revealed in interviews that Schwarzenegger and DeVito were given the option of doing this movie or Suburban Commando. Had DeVito and Schwarzenegger made Suburban Commando, Hulk Hogan and Christopher Lloyd would have made this movie. Only Hogan and DeVito state that Vincent would have been hassled by horse racing bookies instead of loan sharks. The film is marketed with the tagline "Only their mother can tell them apart."

Julius and Vincent Benedict are fraternal twins; the results of a secret experiment carried out at a genetics laboratory to produce the perfect child, using sperm donated by six different fathers. The mother, Mary Ann was told that the children died at birth. Accepting this, she goes on to become a successful artist.

In fact, they both survived. Vincent was placed in an orphanage run by nuns in Los Angeles, California whilst Julius was taken to an unnamed South Pacific island and raised to become highly intelligent, physically very strong and spiritually pure. He learned to speak twelve languages, and excelled in mathematics, history, science and literature. He was not told about his younger brother until his 35th birthday.

In Los Angeles, with no-one but himself to rely on, Vincent escapes from the orphanage as soon as he is old enough and develops into the ultimate lowlife, involved in shady business deals and car theft and in debt to loan sharks. He is also a womanizer and a smart aleck with a very greedy lust for money. He is about to be killed by the loan sharks when he is arrested for unpaid parking fines.

Julius is told about his unknown brother, and comes to Los Angeles to look for him. Highly intelligent, but extremely naive about the real world his brother inhabits, he bails Vincent out of jail and meets Vincent's on-off-on girlfriend Linda Mason. Knowing little about women, Julius doesn't understand the flirtatious advances of her blonde sister Marnie, but eventually falls in love with her.

Using a stolen Cadillac that's carrying a secret prototype fuel injector, which Vincent is delivering to a rival industrialist in Houston, Texas, the two couples go on a cross-country journey to track down the scientist who was in charge of the experiment, and pressure him to reveal the location of their mother, who they find out has founded an art colony. Visiting the colony, they're informed their mother died and leave. In reality, the women who told them of the passing is in fact their mother but she didn't believe the story, fearing they were land speculators..

Angry and disappointed, Vincent storms off and delivers the stolen property in return for five million dollars. But as Vincent is about to return home with the money, the industrialist, Donald "Beetroot" McKinley, has been shot to death. Julius saves him from being killed by Webster, the real contract delivery man, who has tracked them down.

They return the money (the "four million dollars", suggesting they (or at least Vincent) skimmed a million off), marry the sisters, and use the $50,000 reward money to start up a legitimate consulting business ("Like the RAND corporation... only smarter!"), utilizing Julius's knowledge and Vincent's questionable business savvy. As a result of the publicity, their mother tracks them down and they are tearfully reunited. In the end, both brothers end up having pairs of twins with their respective wives.

• Arnold Schwarzenegger - Julius Benedict
• Danny DeVito - Vincent Benedict
• Kelly Preston - Marnie Mason
• Chloe Webb - Linda Mason
• Bonnie Bartlett - Mary Ann Benedict
• David Caruso - Al Greco
• Trey Wilson - Donald "Beetroot" McKinley
• Marvin J. McIntyre (who co-starred with Schwarzenegger in The Running Man) - McKinley's man
• Marshall Bell - Mr. Webster
• Tony Jay - Professor Werner
• Hugh O'Brian - Granger, one of the twins' fathers
• Jason Reitman - Granger's grandson
• Catherine Reitman, daughter of Ivan and sister of Jason - Granger's granddaughter
• Nehemiah Persoff - Professor Mitchell Traven
• Maury Chaykin - Burt Klane
• Sven-Ole Thorsen - Sam Klane
• Gus Rethwisch (also of The Running Man) - Dave Klane
• Richard Portnow - Chop shop owner
• Frances Bay - Mother Superior
• Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa - Oriental man
• Elizabeth Kaitan - Secretary
• Joe Medjuck - Photographer at the start of the film
• Erik Kiser - Baby Twin #1
• Kyle Kiser - Baby Twin #2
• Nicolette Larson - singer for the house band
• Jeff Beck - guitarist in the house band
• Terry Bozzio - drummer in the house band
• Heather Graham appears uncredited as a young Mary Ann Benedict

• Twins at the Internet Movie Database
• Twins at All Movie Guide
• Twins at Rotten Tomatoes

v • d • e American films of the 1980s
1980 •1981 •1982 •1983 •1984 •1985 •1986 •1987 •1988 •1989