GETTING EVEN WITH DAD
A film review by John Walker
Copyright 1995 John Walker
My form of "rating": On the first viewing, I alternated between laughter and being pleasantly wired. (Nothing hyper, mind you, just a pleasant "What's gonna happen next!?" [Let it be noted that I get wired easily.]) On the second viewing, the humor predominated. (I almost became the most dreaded theater companion--starting to laugh *before* the joke!)
The primary dilemma: This is one flick where reviewers don't have to give any opinions of their own. For many of you, I can simply list some data, and I'll convince you that this is a flick you'll probably like a lot or probably hate intensely. Datum: It co-stars *Macaulay Culkin*. Datum: It has echoes (not very strong) of the HOME ALONE sagas. There are other similar datums, too, but these two should be enough for now.
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You might already have heard the story, but here it is. Ray (Ted Danson) has planned the perfect heist: gold coins to be lifted with the aid of two partners--Bobby (Saul Rubinek) and Carl (Gailard Sartain). True, their last escapade got them four years in Folsom, but at least Ray used the time well--to learn cake decorating, which he now does for a living in San Francisco.
Unfortunately, the flaw in the ointment is that Ray's son Timmy (Culkin) has been dropped on him for a week. Ray's estranged wife died a few years ago, and Timmy has been living with Ray's sister Kitty. Well, she's getting married, and dumps Timmy for a week. Ray and company pull off the heist, and merely have to sit on the coins for a week while their fence gets cash. Regrettably, Timmy is on to them, purloins the coins, and holds them for blackmail: a week with Ray actually acting like a father--taking him to a ball game, the aquarium, roller coasters, the works.
Much of the film's comedy will be based on Bobby and Carl tagging along, trying to second-guess Timmy about the coins and to keep up with him and Ray on the activities. (I rather liked a "dramatic", slow-motion moment--during a game of miniature golf!)
Oh, by the way, through a fluke, the cops are on to Ray & Co. They and Timmy will be tailed all week by Terese (Glenne Headly). Need we say that Something Will Develop Between Ray and Terese?
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Now, looking at that description, you might feel you can psyche the story out: very 90s, very single-parent family, very father-son bonding, very dealing with justifiable resentment. (With heavy doses of sentiment--and a little discreet smooching between Ray and Terese.)
Well, if that's what you want, you ain't gonna get it. (Except for the slight smooching--and the sentiment rush, which is held off till the climax.) GETTING EVEN WITH DAD may take place in 1994, but its heart and soul are a lot earlier. If I had to give a date, I'd say 1949: It still has some of the sweetness of 30s flicks, before it became frozen in the 50s, but with a certain 40s realism.
GETTING EVEN WITH DAD is in two great traditions of 30s and 40s flicks: the crook with a heart of gold, and the kid out looking for a parent. I think it may pass for 90s because it does indeed take place here. The 30s and 40s kids were looking for an *additional* parent: a wife for Dad, or a husband for Mom (or two separate kids conspiring to get their respective parents married to each other). That's too optimistic for today. Yes, if there's a possibility of getting Dad hooked up with Terese, Timmy's not going to pass it by--but it's not really his main goal. Timmy's expectations are scaled down to 90s reality. He'll settle for one *real* parent. (The guy his aunt Kitty is marrying is a dork.)
Timmy is not terribly interested in Working Out His Feelings. He knows what they are, they've been painful, and he doesn't deceive himself about them or put on a show that it was really nothing. But Timmy, like his predecessors 50 and 60 years ago, has a very down-to-earth, survival-motivated way of looking at things. He and they are instinctive little conservatives. Families *ought* to have breakfast in the morning; they *ought* to do things together; there are *standards*, thank you; and we (kids) are going to see that things are done as they ought to be done!
Those kids were more apt to be concerned about the moral implications of decent cooking and a clean house than about "fulfillment".
Timmy doesn't *need* to "bond" with Ray: Ray is his *father*. Timmy just needs to wake Ray up to the fact.
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But it's not enough for Timmy just to get a full-time father. Timmy has a 60-years-ago moral point of view together with 90s (or 40s) realism. He loves his father, but not his father's plans. A) He thinks stealing is *wrong*. B) He's convinced that Ray will fail.
For Ray, of course, the heist is his big chance: to own his own bakery, to be secure, to make something of himself. For Timmy, that just doesn't cut it:
So what you're saying is, that you want to go straight, but
in order to do that, you have to steal?
Yeah.
I'm eleven, and that seems dumb even for me.
90s cynicism in the service of 30s ethics.
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Now, having noted what I think are GETTING EVEN WITH DAD's obvious antecedents, I don't think it's any criticism to say that the show's writers (Tom S. Parker and Jim Jennewein) are making no pretense to originality. Any of us who demand originality after meeting Ray & Co. in the opening are given pretty explicit warning when Culkin first appears on film. We get a gentle nod to "Calvin and Hobbes"--as Timmy voice-overs while he videotapes Kitty and her intended, Wayne:
"6 pm, a lonely stretch of California highway: Timmy Gleason
suddenly realizes he's been abducted by alien beings. ...
Sure, [Wayne] *looks* human, right down to his bald spot. But
Timmy knew it was all a disguise. No *real* human could ever eat
three Double Whoppers in one sitting."
Radical originality, it's not. But if you want to have fun figuring out what's going to happen next, then GETTING EVEN WITH DAD will give you ample opportunity. That scene, for instance, sets up Timmy's use of the video camera, which will be important later on. And this sort of thing happens again and again.
GETTING EVEN WITH DAD is sort of a mystery in reverse--we know whodunit, and the film honors the overall expectations we have for a film like this. But the writers sprinkle clues for what's going to happen later. Some, as in any mystery, are blind alleys; others are important. (I suspect that the writers figured they had to please both kids and adults. Following the "clues" is an added attraction for the adults without distracting the kids.)
Note, though, that this is one of those datums: I figure the writers were having fun, and I'm glad to be in on it. Others may think the writers were telegraphing their punches and were just too lazy to make everything seem original and unexpected.
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In all this, each member of the cast seems to shine. True, they are all playing stock characters in some sense. But stock characters are probably closer to life than we wish to admit. Culkin appears simply effortless as the bright, calculating 11-year-old. He's supposed to be bright--his last Stanford score was in "the 95th percentile". (Didn't they used to say "the upper fifth percentile"?) But he's not SuperKid. He gives us a whole kid--eager, calculating, worried, stubborn, cheerful, sad, serious, or wise-ass as needs be. I *liked* his character. (Those with 11-year-olds around might not find it so so easy!)
Ted Danson sort of surprised me. I didn't merely like his character, I figured there was some *weight* behind this guy Ray. Timmy may not believe his old man can be an effective criminal, but Danson makes it perfectly believable. Even though I *knew* the cops were dogging his heels every second, he still seemed just to have it all together. The cops had nothing but dumb luck in their favor--maybe Ray *could* pull it off!
Of course, maybe Timmy merely realized that Ray didn't have the ultimate ruthlessness or coldness a criminal really needs. There might be no conflict between my feeling for Ray's competence and Timmie's feeling for his incompetence *as a criminal*.
In fact, the only thing that argued against Ray's criminal competence was his choice of partners: Rubinek as Bobby makes a lovely small-time hood: poor workmanship but big ideas ("A *moving* armored car! That is great--we need major firepower--a couple of AK-47s--they got these--these--bazookas, man....") An echo of the crooks in the HOME ALONEs, he falls on it when he tries to outwit Timmy.
On the hand, Sartain as Carl basically *knows* he doesn't know very much--and does so with good cheer and sweetness. Bright, he's not, but he shows an underlying common sense. A clown maybe, but not a fool.
Finally, Headly projects a very nice nerdiness as Terese. She's attractive, but just radiates a personality that really *is* more comfortable "dressed like a meter maid". When she dresses more sexily, she seems a little out of place somehow. It's totally appropriate when she lies that she's a kindergarten teacher. She has the brains, the intellect of a detective, but should cops start falling in love with suspects? (Interestingly, it's Timmy that first gets her attention. Ah, the primacy of the nesting impulse!)
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So, like I said, what I described as good may very well convince some of you that you'd probably hate GETTING EVEN WITH DAD.
To finish up on that note, I'll only point out that--from the reverse-mystery perspective--all the threads are tied up neatly at the end. Well, *almost* all. There are a couple of strands that I still have questions about. I don't think there'll be any sequel, but *I* certainly wouldn't mind!
John Walker walkerj@access.digex.net
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