Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Director: John Hughes
Year Released: 1987
Rating: 3.0
After starting off on the wrong foot - the first half-hour is easily the most dispensable and one-sided - Planes, Trains & Automobiles starts working for the rest of the running time and does so with humor and charm. Forget Hughes' direction: it's all Steve Martin and John Candy, who have wonderful chemistry together and pull off some average material extremely well. Martin just wants to go home to his wife and kids for Thanksgiving, but everything goes horribly, undeniably wrong, and it turns into an Odyssey of sorts, with the two using all of the methods of transportation in the title to get to Chicago, all the while dealing with extremely bizarre folk (Dylan Baker is a redneck with a powerful wife who passed their child sideways, Edie McClurg is, well, the type of rental car agent you expect to run into on your worst day). It turns a bit somber towards the end, but I was not displeased - the material isn't overplayed, and the final impact leaves you feeling unexpectedly warm.
