Home Alone (1990)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Home Alone (1990) – J. Hughes

No, I had never watched this John Hughes movie until now – after all, I turned 23 in 1990, so why would I? But now I was encouraged by 9-year-old Amon to give it a spin – and it wasn’t quite as cloying as I had feared. Instead, it had enough slapstick comedy (the kind where comic buffoons get hurt in outlandish ways) to keep Amon cackling away next to me.  Of course, this action doesn’t really get going until the film’s final third.  Before that, we meet Kevin (McCauley Culkin) and his nuclear and extended family who are all going on a trip to Paris (they are very rich, it seems, and live in an upscale part of Chicago). We also meet Joe Pesci who is casing their house disguised as a cop.  Later, with Daniel Stern, he attempts to burgle the residence only to be foiled by Kevin and his various Rube Goldberg contraptions. A subplot finds Kevin teaching his once-scary older neighbour about the value of family and overcoming conflicts. I think a little bit of Culkin goes a long way but Pesci and Stern do approach their roles with gusto and this makes all the difference.