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Planes, Trains and
Automobiles
(1987)
  
Review
Steve Martin plays it mostly straight
in the lead as an arrogant advertising executive who desperately tries
to get from New York and home to Chicago for Thanksgiving, only to be
hampered by constant delays, cancellations and rendezvous with the
annoyingly cheerful and talkative John Candy. If the premise seems
equally annoying, you're quite right; the film is an ordeal to watch,
especially if you try to develop any kind of sympathy for the
protagonist. There are funny bits and pieces scattered around, but also
more agonizing stupidity than John Hughes ever wrote before or since
(perhaps with the exception of
Home Alone 3). Martin's combination
of subdued seriousness and overacted anger is neither here nor there,
but the film does reveal to have a heart and the finale is more
satisfactory then one could hope for.
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