Clever comedy about the everyday work frustrations of modern, Western life where everything that could go wrong does go wrong – and then some! The tension piles up in short order until an explosive climax in that rare thing: An anglophone comedy that is actually funny because it is grounded in a recognizable reality.
Steve Martin and John Candy make uneasy bedfellows. Their fundamental incompatibility and forced male bonding here is exquisitely absurd as the plot contrives to always keep the pair together - no matter what; their inevitable abrasion providing most of the laughs. Martin, diffident and repressed; Candy, an irritating life and soul of the party type. Eventually they come to realize that they are not very different from one another; they just have different methods of achieving the same goals. Candy enjoys life so takes life's inevitable failings in his stride; Martin exhibits highly amusing rages because his character is too controlled, ordinarily; resulting in him taking out his frustrations on others.
This movie comes from the long lost days when Steve Martin was hilarious and before John Candy ever got a chance to be anything else – may he rest in peace.
This movie is also a curiously backhanded celebration of American values through the festival known – ultimately and appropriately, here - as thanksgiving. This neatly emphasizes the underlying theme of absence making the heart grow fonder in one of the very best comedies ever made.
Copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
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