| abstract
| - Mole's underground home is knocked in when the field is bulldozed by Weasels; the field has been owned by Mr. Toad (Terry Jones), who has sold it to finance his latest fad; caravanning. Mole (Steve Coogan) flees to the river and meets the Water Rat (Eric Idle), who is getting ready to embark on a picnic. Seeing Mole's distress, Rat decides to take Mole to see Mr. Toad. Toad encourages them to travel with him on the Open Road, in his newly bought canary-coloured cart. Disaster strikes when a pair of joyriders in a motor car knock over the cart. Toad, however, instantly discards the cart and becomes obsessed with motoring. He is a reckless driver, however, and ends up needing more money from the weasels. Their Chief (Antony Sher), tries to persuade him to sell Toad Hall. Accompanying their Chief on his mission to steal Toad Hall are Clarence Weasel (Keith-Lee Castle) and Geoffrey Weasel (Richard James), who both passionately hate one another, as becomes more obvious each time we see them, and St. John Weasel (Robert Bathurst), who attempts to suck up to the chief, but his bumbling stupidity always rubs him up the wrong way. The Weasels have plans to build on Toad's meadow- St John almost reveals what they have in mind, but the Chief prevents him from doing so. During a crazy drive into the Wild Wood, resulting in the destruction of another car, all three protagonists are lost in the inhospitable place. Mole encounters the Weasels, who attempt to coerce him into stopping his friends from interfering with their plans. They later encounter Toad, after fleeing when Rat arrives. All three protagonists end up in Mr. Badger's underground abode. Badger (Nicol Williamson), a close friend of Toad's late father and feeling responsible for Toad's reckless conduct regarding his inheritance, is awakened from his deep sleep. As soon as he learns the news, Badger takes the initiative to put some sense back in Toad's head. However, Toad refuses to listen to Badger and continues his reckless behavior which ultimately ends up with him being arrested for stealing and crashing a new motor-car. During his trial, Toad's defense lawyer (a cameo from John Cleese) proves to be more of a problem than the prosecution. Furthermore, the Weasels are dominating the public box, and the Chief Weasel is posing as one of the rabbits in the Jury, and coerces the terrified creatures into finding Toad guilty. The Judge (Stephen Fry) initially sentences Toad to twenty years in prison, but after Toad insults the Court and makes a botched escape attempt, the Judge increases the sentence gradually, eventually resulting in a hundred-year sentence. Rat and Mole then move into Toad Hall for a while, protecting it from the Weasels. They ponder whether or not they should break Toad out of prison, but are then ambushed by the Weasels, who take Toad Hall as their own. Outside, they see barrels marked "Bones" and "Danger Explosives". Rat decides to switch the labels for each barrel to keep tamper with whatever the Weasels are up to. With the help of the sympathetic Jailer's Daughter (Julia Sawalha) and her reluctant Tea Lady Aunt (a cameo from Victoria Wood), Toad escapes, disguised as the latter. Along with Rat and Mole, he climbs aboard a train engine. During the course of the journey, the police demand for the train to be stopped; Toad confesses and begs the driver (Bernard Hill) to help him evade his captors. If only to protect his train, the driver agrees to help. He tosses coal lumps at the police, but gets caught in a mail catcher. Toad takes control of the train and is separated. He eventually crashes the engine, though he miraculously survives. Toad sets off again but only to get caught again by the Weasels, who in the meantime have taken over Toad Hall. The full extent of their twisted plans are revealed: they have built a dog-food factory over the remains of Mole's house and are planning to blow up Toad Hall, and build a huge slaughterhouse in its place, with which they will 'process' all of the peaceful Riverbank dwellers, and turn them into dogfood. Along with this, their activities have also damaged Badger's home, which provokes him into taking decisive action against them. Badger and Rat attempt to break into Toad Hall, but are caught by the Weasels. Along with Toad, they are placed in the factory's mincing machine under the orders of the Chief Weasel. The Chief, Clarence and Geoffrey return to Toad Hall to prepare the victory celebration, leaving St. John in charge of the machine. Mole, who has broken into the factory, disables the machine, enabling them to escape. Lulled by a premature sense of victory, the Chief Weasel's henchmen turn traitor, and attempt to blow him up using a Toad Hall shaped birthday cake, and Clarence and Geoffrey begin quarreling among themselves for leadership, with the other Weasels taking sides drunkenly. This allows the protagonists to stage a raid on the house, leaving all the weasels incapacitated in the ensuing fight. However, the Chief is revealed to still be alive, and he escapes the scene, and is pursued by Toad. Toad attempts to stop him from reaching the factory, containing the detonator necessary to blow up Toad Hall, to no avail. Unbeknownst to both of them, the explosives are actually in the factory as result of Rat switching the barrel labels earlier, and as such, the Chief blows up the factory, killing him, and leaving Toad Hall untouched and Toad's friends alive and well. Afterwards, Toad makes a public speech swearing off motor cars and promising to be wiser and less prideful in the future. Toad then sneaks off during a song with Mole, Rat and Badger, for the second time and is seen speaking to an airplane salesman, showing that he has not changed at all, only moved onto a new craze. Moments later, Toad flies over the crowd in the plane, causing mass hysteria and resulting in Badger swearing never to help Toad again. The film ends with Toad flying out across the country, and eventually over the sea.
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