By Richard Winters
My Rating: 4 out of 10
4-Word Review: Babysitting his brother’s kids.
Bob and Cindy (Garrett M. Brown, Elaine Bromka) must leave for Indianapolis when they’re informed that her father has suffered a heart attack and are desperate to find someone to look after their three children: Tia (Jean Louisa Kelly) who’s the oldest, and Miles (Macaulay Culkin) and Maizy (Gaby Hoffman). After going through all possibilities, they finally settle on Bob’s brother Buck (John Candy). Buck avoids commitment and spends most of his time at the track betting on horse races. His relationship with the kids is awkward, but he finally manages to bond with the younger two, but things remain frosty between him and Tia. Things further escalate when Tia wants to spend time with her boyfriend Bug (Jay Underwood) whom Buck does not approve of.
While the film has its flaws, which we’ll get to in a minute, it does start out pretty well. Candy is always good for laughs, even just his very presence can elicit chuckles, and Kelly, in her film debut, is excellent and helps give the story some depth with her three-dimensional character. While the humor does score points, particularly the giant pancake that Buck serves up to the kids, there were other moments where I felt it could’ve gone further. The scene dealing with a clown, played by Mike Starr, who shows up to the kid’s party drunk, would’ve been funnier had he actually been allowed inside and then have Buck get into a fight with him all to the amusement of the kids who had been bored just previously.
The main character though ultimately becomes a big drawback. One second, he’s a laid-back slob and in the next instant a stern father-figure. It was confusing why someone, who didn’t even know the kid’s names when he’s driving up, would suddenly take such extreme concern for them in just a matter of one short week. This was a guy who had no children, nor wanted any, so where did he suddenly get all this parental wisdom from? Would’ve been better had he initially been completely carefree with the kids, let them do whatever they wanted while he sat back and drank beer, only to eventually realize through the chaos that there needed to be some rules and limits, which would’ve given him an actual character arch verses this weird, unexplained Jekyll and Hyde thing that we get here.
He also has moments where he isn’t all that likable and seems in a way kind of creepy. His broken down, back-firing car is a total disaster and an embarrassment to Tia who asks that she be able to walk home instead being seen going inside it. If Buck was really being sensitive he would’ve understood her feelings and agreed to let her walk home, or picked her up a few blocks down the road that would’ve been out of sight of her friends. However, he instead becomes very angry and controlling insisting he’ll pick her up whether she likes it, or not, but why be so demanding? Just a little while earlier he barely knew she existed and he’s just there for a week and then back home to his regular life, so why not just let her do what she wants, it should make no real difference to him either way.
The scene where he traps the cheating boyfriend in the trunk of his car is equally problematic and in reality, could’ve led to some serious consequences. Granted it would’ve been the gentlemanly thing for the boyfriend to have officially broken up with Tia before he starts messing around with someone else at a party, but that still doesn’t give Buck the right to tie him up with duct tape, and drive around until the wee hours of the night with him in the trunk. Legally this would be deemed kidnapping and then having Buck nail him in the back of the head with a golf ball would’ve gotten an added charge of assault and if the kid, or his parents, went to the authorities, Buck would be in a heap of trouble. The car exhaust was in such disarray anyways the kid probably would’ve been overcome with the fumes and when Buck did finally open the trunk door he’d find himself with a dead body.
Buck’s girlfriend Chanice, played by Amy Madigan, isn’t handled right either. She’s introduced briefly in the first act and then pretty much disappears only to come on strong near the end, which doesn’t work. Having her consistently in the film by having Buck regularly calling her to get advice on how to deal with the kids, or do household chores, which then could’ve helped strengthen their teetering relationship. Marcie, played by Laurie Metcalf, who was the weird neighbor lady who tried to come-on to Buck, was not needed. I admit that Buck’s ‘conversation’ with the washing machine, which Marcie overhears, was quite funny, but having Chanice walk-in while he’s talking, would’ve been just as good.
The inciting incident is weak too. Buck is reluctantly asked to come babysit the kids because they couldn’t find anyone else, but in reality, Bob, the husband, really didn’t need to go with Cindy to Indianapolis to visit her sick father. Yes, it’s nice for the spouse to tag along when he can for moral support, but his job probably wouldn’t have let him off on such short notice, and this was 1989 long before remote work was even a concept. To make it more plausible Bob and Cindy should’ve already been on a trip, like a cruise, and then having logistical issues, like a weather event, force them to extend their trip. The babysitter that was in place wouldn’t be able to stay longer and then asking Buck to come for only ‘an extra day or two’ would’ve made more sense. The film then could have this running joke where Buck would think is time there would be coming to a close only to have Bob and Cindy call again telling he’d have to stay longer because more problems had come up, which would then elicit increasingly frustrated responses from Buck.
My Rating: 4 out of 10
Released: August 16, 1989
Runtime: 1 Houd 40 Minutes
Rated PG
Director: John Hughes
Studio: Universal Pictures
Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube
Scopophilia 