Uncle Buck
The life and career of John Candy can best be described as both melancholic and sad. Possessing an amazing talent for improvisation and an enormous amount of charisma despite being over 300 lbs, it is also notable that literally nobody that he ever worked with ever had a bad word to say about him, always describing him as being one of the nicest, funniest and most generous personalities that they have ever known. Maybe there was a reason for that: All the males in Candyâs family had been known to have had a history of heart disease and both his father and grandfather had died of heart attacks before the age of 40, so being both a big guy and a heavy smoker, itâs entirely conceivable that Candy had known and sadly accepted the fact that he would not live a long life regardless of any health measures that he could have undertaken which led to him choosing to treat everyone he knew with kindness even in the vicious, cutthroat world of Hollywood filmmaking. In 1989, Candy starred in what many considered to be his comedy acting magnum opus under the watchful directorial eye of another undisputed legend in John Hughes (who himself ironically would die of a heart attack in later years at age 59). Hughes was once known as the king of the teenage angst high school comedies, but at that time had recently graduated to doing more domestic related comedies instead and this concept of having two parents get called out of town on a family medical emergency and (very) reluctantly leaving both the house and kids to be looked after on short notice to the husbandâs notoriously layabout, unemployed, unmarried, uncouth brother (Candyâs Buck), a guy who has no concept about living in the suburbs or mingling amongst the social classes that his brother and sister in law belong to. Almost immediately we can sense Hughes walking a fine line in describing and depicting just what exactly is âwrongâ with Buck as a human being. Certainly the potential to lay out a more monstrous portrait of the character could have been in the offing, including showing him to be uneducated white trash, lecherous, somebody with a criminal record, drug addicted or any number of other things that would certainly qualify him as being the âblack sheepâ of the family (and the reason why his brotherâs wife would be so adamant to NOT call him for help). Instead, in the more than capable hands of Candy, Buck is merely a lazy bum who derives most of his income from gambling at the track, smokes cigars (oh no!) and seems to run away from any opportunities at gainful employment whenever he can including a job offered to him by his salt of the earth girlfriend (whom again his brotherâs wife seems to look down on) with whom he has maintained a monogamous relationship for years. Point being, Buck in and of himself is NOT THAT BAD as he appears to be and Candy with his easygoing personality merely seals the fact that we can accept and root for him while his brother (himself seemingly not a bad guy) has to defend the choice of asking for Buckâs help to his wife who appears to be the one with the real problems when it comes to looking down upon others whom she considers to be lesser than her. But fortunately she does have to deal with someone who not only sees right through her, but also has the market cornered utterly when it comes to being an ill tempered yet likable little bitch. Even though Macaulay Culkin would see his career take off into Home Alone Nirvana following his role here as the precocious young son, it was Jean Louisa Kelly who really should have had a long run as a major star (although she has continued to have a steady career with no other roles even coming close to this one) after playing the eldest daughter Tia here, a beautifully sullen babe who nastily steals the opening scene by telling her little sister, âWe need boys so they can grow up, get married and turn into shadows.â As written, the role would have seemed perfect for either Winona Ryder or Juliette Lewis, but Kelly comes off as someone who is somehow much more appealing than either of those two bigger names, achieving the not so mean feat of having such a toxic waste personality all while saying the cruelest and most mean spirited things to Buck, her mother and others and yet we still find it almost impossible to hate her due to Kellyâs own substantial charisma and well played subtext of pain under her cold surface which results in a good case getting made for her Tia Russell being the single best female character that John Hughes ever came up with for a movie, Molly Ringwald be damned. The main part of the movie is really the battle of wills between her and Buck, as Buck comes in with good intentions and is duty bound to his absent brother to be the best parental guardian that he can be as his lovely, bitchy niece discovers that itâs a lot harder to sneak out or fool the person whoâs watching you if they donât work a job like both her parents do. Driving around in his beat up old Mercury car (with its trademark gunshot tailpipe) and attending to all the duties involved in looking after the kids, Candyâs Buck comes across as somebody whoâs making up all his own rules of parenting as he goes along and getting major comic mileage out of it, including having a habit of making direct threats towards those who give his family a hard time, doing so in such a way that the troublesome person has to wonder if heâs really serious or crazy or both. Meanwhile, his girlfriend (Amy Madigan) is just about on the outs with him over what apparently was him blowing off her job offer at her tire place in order to watch his brotherâs kids all while the divorced, nosy and horny neighbor across the street (Laurie Metcalf) is putting the moves on him every chance she gets. The major point of conflict though is with his nieceâs scummy boyfriend (Jay Underwood a long way removed from The Boy Who Could Fly and well on his way down the Hollywood ladder at that point) who is taking advantage of her unhappy home life to manipulate her (sheâs 15) into a sexual relationship that only she will wind up regretting. Buck has seen it all before from his younger days and sees right through this as well, utilizing his protective instincts to try to steer his niece away from mistakes like these. Other bits include a (classic) scene where he confronts his younger nieceâs (Gaby Hoffmann) principal who has labeled her a âbad eggâ because sheâs so easily distracted, Culkin playing a rapid fire game of 20 questions with Candy which was probably the reason why he was drafted for the Home Alone gig, an encounter between Candy and a drunken, foul mouthed birthday clown who winds up talking a little too much shit and Candy taking the kids out for a night on the town to his favorite sleazy bowling alley where he has people coming up and talking business with him (horse races) while one degenerate actually puts the moves on his gorgeous niece. What makes this film notable for Hughes as a director are a number of awkwardly hilarious camera angles which in and of themselves invoke laughter (or at least more than they normally would) just from the way that certain scenes are shot. Some might say that portions of the story donât work simply because Buck is meant to be âbadâ or the âblack sheepâ of the family but since Candy really doesnât play the character as anything other than good natured or sweet, the labels applied to him (especially by his sister in law) donât seem to have any other merit than in the obvious upper / lower class divide between him and his brotherâs family, leading one to wonder if the movie could have been even funnier if Buck was portrayed in a more edgier light (or at least as edgy as Hughes was willing to go for a PG rating like this movie has) at times making the character seem derivative of other good natured losers seen in many other films but rarely in real life (although Candy showing a nastier demeanor in any of his films would have been fascinating to see as the guy never even played a villain). Couple that with a badly staged final scene and it stays just out of the realm of being a true masterpiece for Hughes like The Breakfast Club was and continues to be to this day. But as for being a snapshot of John Candy at his best when carrying a film (since so many of his best films were with him in a supporting capacity), this film continues to be held up, cherished and appreciated as being the best work of a guy who tragically didnât get to live long enough to look back upon his careerâŚ
8/10