Undescribable Perfection

The Worst Film Ever

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

To get to know his girlfriend's son (Ethan Embry), a working-class good guy (Ed O'Neill) volunteers to pick him up from a prep school -- only to learn that her son is not the nicest kid.This film has an impressive pedigree. The director, Peter Faiman, is not well known, but he was the director of "Crocodile Dundee", which makes him a small legend. And the writer was John Hughes, a giant in the industry."Dutch" received extremely poor reviews from critics, where it has a 14% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 3.7 out of 10 from 21 reviews. It was also a flop at the box office, grossing less than $5 million compared to its $17 million budget. Despite poor reception from critics, the film has garnered a cult following (as is common for Hughes films).

This is one of our family's annual must watch movies around the Holidays; although we watch it during the entire year. To me, this is the best thing Ed O"Neill has done! I know people like him in the TV Series, Married with Children, but I don't think it compares to his acting in Dutch. Modern Family is so much more entertaining than Married with Children. I wish he was offered more movie roles; he certainly deserves them. Ethan Randall was perfect for his role. JoBeth Williams, as always, uses her skills to play the perfect Mother role And Christopher McDonald - what can you say - casting was spot on!Great cast and story-line; comedy at its best. Thumbs-up to Dutch!!!

Writer-producer John Hughes is back again with yet another collection of smart-aleck kids and stupid adults. This time around the boy is a rich brat who needs to be taught a lesson by his aggressively blue collar, surrogate dad, played by Ed O'Neill (who gets a knee jerk laugh of recognition from fans of the TV sit-com 'Married…With Children'). His job is to chaperon the ungrateful whippersnapper home to Chicago from his Southern prep school for Thanksgiving, but of course they hate each other on sight, and have to endure a predictable bonding routine after the usual battery of abuse: comic relief kicks in the groin and so forth. Peter Faiman ('Crocodile Dundee') gets the director's credit, but make no mistake: the film belongs to Hughes, who certainly knows by now how to recycle a formula. It's all been done before of course, and even those less discriminating viewers at whom the film is aimed won't fail to notice how quickly it lapses into the same, tired clichés.

Dutch is fantastic because Ed O'Neill, the star of the movie, is a fantastic comedian, and an underrated one at that (but then again, Hollywood does recycle the same cast over and over, so it's no surprised you never see him in too many major motion pictures). And though Christopher MacDonald, who play's Doyle's father is a real creep, he is a great comedian as well, and you just can't help to laugh whenever this guy is around (uh...that's a good thing).This is the early part of John Hughes's transition into strictly doing family films. He passed the teenage films (the brat pack series), then films with slightly younger supporting and main casts (Uncle Buck, Curly Sue, Dutch), and then went straight for the youngest-aged family film series (Home Alone, Baby's Day Out, etc). The early part of the John Hughes family film series, which started somewhere around 1989/1990 and continued into the early 90s, are comedies that I still enjoy watching (I haven't cared to watch many of his later movies because Baby's Day Out and Beethoven, etc. just doesn't interest me). They had two great elements: the social commentary (though it tends to be repeated in many of his films/screenplays), and the comedy element. Disappointed that his father (Christopher MacDonald) is in London (on a supposed "business trip", which translates into a holiday with a woman instead of his son) and won't be spending time with him on Thanskgiving, spoiled-brat Doyle (Ethan Embry) decides that he doesn't want to spend the holiday with his mother, either. They don't get along well, especially considering he is more like a mirror of his incredibly obnoxious father, while his mother (Jo Beth Williams) is a sensitive, kinder woman who just wants to get along with her son. Don't worry, 'Dutch' is on the case! Dutch (Ed O'Neill) is sort of a bafoon character (as we see from the introduction at the party where he engages in something like a mini version of Peter Sellers in 'The Party'). But, he's a good-natured fellow with a heart of gold. He'd have to be to make a promise to Doyle's mom that he'd bring the boy home for the holidays (Doyle goes to private school). It proves to be no easy task. Not at all. Since Doyle doesn't want to come home at all, let alone with his mother's goofy boyfriend. Doyle despises Dutch because Doyle comes from major money (Dutch works in construction) and sees himself as a much classier person than Dutch (who can get pretty gross when he wants...if only to annoy Doyle). But, Dutch is going to do whatever it takes (and it takes a lot) not only to keep his promise to Doyle's mother, but to try and get the tense little boy to lighten up and see that the world is not entirely against him. So there, you have the typical elements of Hughest: 1) social commentary via class divisions; and 2) unecessary youth angst. With a guy like Ed O'Neill, who even offers some great slapstick comedy, you can be sure that you'll be in for a lot of laughs. This guy truly is one underrated actor.