Home Alone

Rating: 8/10 (10 December 2013)

Home Alone will stand the test of time, methinks. Watching it tonight, I just find it too much fun. Culkin is certainly a bona fide star here, the groundwork laid in his wonderful work opposite John Candy in the John Hughes-directed, Uncle Buck. The plot—as if you didn't know it, right?—has 8-year old Culkin (quite wise beyond his years, if a bit precocious and, at times, mischievous) left accidentally alone while his parents and family go to Paris by plane to visit the father's brother for the Christmas Holidays. He must fend off two cartoonish, oafish burglars (calling themselves the "wet bandits"!!!) robbing rich suburban houses on his block, their eyes mainly focused on thieving from his family's home. Pesci and Stern are positively hilarious as the not-so-bright thieves, winding up punished by Culkin's vast array of traps laid at the house they so desperately want to rob. There's a lot more to the film than just seeing the bandits fall prey to violent traps set by an intelligent kid; touched on is Culkin's loneliness without his family, dealing with a scary neighbor (Roberts Blossom, who is simply delightful) that has more to him than meets the eye, and a mother's devoted trip back home to her son. Of course, generations of fans will remember Culkin applying aftershave and shrieking and the "Filthy Animal" footage scaring both Stern and a pizza delivery boy.
The visual silhouette trick where Culkin fools Pesci and Stern into believing there was a party taking place is brilliant. Terrific casting, with the likes of Catherine O'Hara and John Heard as the parents, and even the smaller parts (the aforementioned Blossom and John Candy as the leader of a Polka band who offers a rented van ride to O'Hara he and his traveling buddies use to get to a gig in Milwaukee, passing through Chicago on the way), only enhance the whole experience.
While the Raison d'être might seem to be Culkin outsmarting dim-witted, numskull burglars—using violence from a Loony Tunes cartoon to do so—there's plenty more to enjoy here. Personally, I think Culkin as the anchor is one of the chief reasons this film remains so timeless and specialit's the perfect example of just-right casting.
"This is my house. I have to defend it."
After building up some good will throughout, credibility does go out the window, but this final stand between Culkin and the bandits is so highly memorable, I think it's excusable. Plus, despite what we know would *really* happen if these two actually were shot by bb's from a bb gun, slip on purposely icy steps, get hit in the head with a crowbar, touch a doorknob heated extremely, stepped on a long nail, received an iron to the forehead, tripped (and landed on) hotwheels, get a blow torch flame to the top of the head (!!!), step barefoot first onto ornaments (Yikes!), and take a shot to the face by loaded paint cans(!), part of the fun is to suspend disbelief and take it all in stride. Stern's reaction to the spider (and the iron stamp on his face) is priceless. As is Pesci covered in feathers. Stern trying to hit the spider and instead crushing Pesci's chest only adds to the outrageousness of the final minutes.
While I loved and anticipated the finale as a child, with all its Three Stooges violence, I think as an adult, the film prior to this leaves a great deal more of an impression. There's a lot of heart here, accompanying the pain of picking the wrong house to rob and the wrong kid to antagonize. After Blossom bops the bandits in the heads with an ice shovel, the film pretty much tells you it's only a movie. Culkin re-uniting with his parents is the heart-warming ending you could only expect; include especially Blossom re-uniting with his estranged son's family, and there's much to find beyond just two nitwits enduring bodily injury most normal folks would never recover from.