PLANES, TRAINS, & AUTOMOBILES
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1987 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Pleasant compilation of all the holiday travel horror stories that fit into a short 93 minutes. Two very opposite travelers, played by Steve Martin and John Candy, are repeatedly thrown together by fate and finally by choice. John Hughes can handle comedy about adults almost as well as comedy about teens. Rating: +1.
Mention John Hughes's name and most people think of films about teenagers. Most are light comedies that hide perceptive character studies. SIXTEEN CANDLES and THE BREAKFAST CLUB are among his better efforts. FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF was fair and WEIRD SCIENCE...well, even Frank Capra made occasional duds. PLANES, TRAINS, & AUTOMOBILES is about people who are at least technically adults. But for that fact it bears all the hallmarks of Hughes's earlier work.
Neal Page (played by a somewhat subdued Steve Martin) wants to do something very simple. he wants to go from New York City to Chicago. He is leaving the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and he expects in hours to be with his family in Chicago. It will be hours (and hours and hours). Page is about to discover everything that can possibly go wrong when you travel and a few things that probably can't. One of the things that goes wrong is that he gets as a traveling partner Del Griffith (played by John Candy), who may well be the personification of every personality trait that Page does not want in someone to whom he will be in close proximity. Griffith is a boisterous, obnoxious shower-curtain-ring salesman. Page is prim, fastidious, intolerant, and uptight. Fate and coincidence have bound the two of them together on a circuitous and frustrating route to Chicago. Their trip is just one Murphy's Law incident after another, with just about anything going wrong that Hughes's sadistic mind can arrange. The basic plot if fairly predictable--the two will find every possible pitfall of traveling by air, rail, or road.
Martin has some funny bits on his own, but he is repeatedly upstaged by Candy, who plays his part far more broadly but at the same time winningly. Neither seems the kind of companion anyone would really want to go across the country with, though eventually we find ourselves inexplicably liking each. PLANES, TRAINS, & AUTOMOBILES is pleasant holiday fare and worth a viewing. Rate it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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