HOUSE ARREST
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1996 James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 3.0 Alternative Scale: *1/2 out of ****
United States, 1996 U.S. Release Date: 8/14/96 (wide) Running Length: 1:48 MPAA Classification: PG (Mild profanity) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Pollock, Kyle Howard, Amy Sakasitz, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jennifer Tilly, Mooky Arizona, Wallace Shawn, Caroline Aaron, Russel Harper, Christopher McDonald, Sheila McCarthy, Ray Walston Director: Harry Winer Producers: Judith Polone and Harry Winer Screenplay: Michael Hitchcock Cinematography: Ueli Steiger Music: Bruce Broughton U.S. Distributor: MGM/UA
Tourists rushing to beaches and lakes. Fireworks on the Fourth of July. Lying outside, basking in the sun. Going to a baseball game. These are some of the rites of summer. Another is the time-honored tradition of movie studios jettisoning the dregs of their vaults every August. Thus we are presented with HOUSE ARREST, a distressingly unfunny, unintelligent children's fantasy about what happens when kids ground their parents.
Had the film gone for the truly absurd, it might have worked. And there's enough potential drama in key situations for things to have been salvageable if writer Michael Hitchcock's script had leaned in the right direction. Unfortunately, HOUSE ARREST takes the predictably pointless middle road, burdening its viewers with failed comedy and artificial sentimentality. This movie is put together with so little regard for the possibility that someone in the audience might have a brain that the experience of watching HOUSE ARREST becomes offensive. This latest "divorce comedy" is vastly inferior to its predecessors, including the uneven-but-enjoyable MRS. DOUBTFIRE and the less satisfying BYE BYE LOVE.
The premise has 14-year old Grover Beindorf (Kyle Howard) and his younger sister, Stacy (Amy Sakasitz), confining their parents, Ned (Kevin Pollock) and Janet (Jamie Lee Curtis), in the basement when the couple announces their intention to separate. With images of divorce haunting them, the children decide to keep Mom and Dad imprisoned until they sort out their differences. Unfortunately, Grover makes the mistake of mentioning his "solution" to his best friend, Matt (Mooky Arizona), and soon there are seven parents locked up for forced "group therapy" in the Beindorfs' basement, and six kids partying upstairs.
Meanwhile, outside, an old police chief who looks like a retired Martian (Ray Walston) is trying to figure out what's going on in his neighbors' house. So he starts snooping around, giving director Harry Winer an opportunity to exhume a few tired, HOME ALONE-type physical gags. There's a problem, though -- when Chris Columbus did this sort of stuff six years ago, it was funny. Here, ripped off and diluted, it's not worth even a half-hearted chuckle.
Instead of using flatulence to generate humor, HOUSE ARREST falls back on another old standby: food fights. At one point, junk food is hurled across a living room in a grotesque orgy of cookies, chips, and chocolate. Later, one character receives a cake to the face. And I can't fail to mention the memorable scene where everyone spits champagne all over the dinner table. How witty! How funny!
The so-called "characters" in HOUSE ARREST fall into one of two categories: boring or obnoxious. Classify Grover, his sister, his parents, and half of the other grown-ups as the former. The rest, including a whiny Wallace Shawn, an overly-belligerent Christopher McDonald, and a ditzy-as-usual Jennifer Tilly, run the gamut from slightly irritating to fingernails-on-the-blackboard unbearable.
For a while, it seems like HOUSE ARREST is going to have a message. As voiced by Jennifer Love Hewitt's teenage personae, it goes something like this: "Our parents aren't going to change just because we want them to." Translated: if Mom and Dad are screwed up, it's not the kids' fault. Unfortunately, only moments after making this statement, HOUSE ARREST goes to great pains to invalidate it, since every parent is miraculously transformed into exactly what their offspring wish for.
Undoubtedly, certain undiscriminating children will enjoy this film, if only for the vicarious thrill of imagining what it might be like to trick their mother and father into this parent trap. However, unlike the season's better family-oriented offerings (like HARRIET THE SPY and MATILDA), few adults will find anything even momentarily diverting in these proceedings. Opportunities to make the film palatable are frequently passed up, and we're left feeling more trapped than the adults in the Beindorfs' cellar. After enduring HOUSE ARREST, I'm convinced it's the film makers who deserve to be grounded.
- James Berardinelli e-mail: berardin@bc.cybernex.net ReelViews web site: http://www.cybernex.net/~berardin
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