Everyone should have an Uncle Buck, right?
When a family emergency strikes the Russell family and all of the responsible contacts are unable to help, Uncle Buck (John Candy) gets the call. His Brother and Sister-in-Law need to leave town for a few days to tend to her Father who has had a heart attack. They, mainly the Sister in-law, have avoided Buck for years due to his embarrassing and care-free lifestyle; but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Of course John Candy delivers some great one liners and just has a way of getting a laugh. Miles (Macaulay Caulkin) and Maizy (Gaby Hoffmann) who play the youngest of the three children are simply adorable. Unlike their sister Tia (Jean Louisa Kelly), Miles and Maizy love Uncle Buck and they have some fun and silly escapades. Buck, being the protective Uncle, despises Tia’s love interest, “Bug”, and goes to some pretty extreme measures to try and scare him off. The thing I like about Buck is that even though Tia pushes him as far away as she can he doesn’t care; he only cares about keeping her safe no matter how outrageous his actions are. At one point Buck threatens “Bug” with a hatchet and in another scene he ends up putting him in his trunk and then when he gets out, he chases him down and hits him in the head with a golf ball; through all of that there is still a lot of humor, especially when it comes to Buck tormenting “Bug”. And in the end I think everyone is a little surprised by how much they needed Uncle Buck.
Motherly Advice: Don’t be fooled by the PG rating with this movie, it pushes the limits a lot for that rating. I set all my filters to high for this one. ClearPlay does a great job filtering out most of the bad language; however, there were a few times the word crap was used between sibling banter. Tia, the oldest daughter, is a rebellious teenager, and shows it with a lot of sarcasm and disrespect to pretty much every adult around her. She tests Uncle Buck by going to parties that involve underage drinking, smoking, and kissing. One scene features teenage sensuality and gets a little too revealing where two teenagers are in a bed and you can clearly see a girl’s undressed legs. Even the two young kids are a little smart-alecky and clearly swear, but, that language is filtered by ClearPlay. Buck also has to endure a lonely neighbor who has her sights set on him. I was glad to see that ClearPlay cut a suggestive scene with Buck and The Washing Machine. There is age sensitive material in the movie but it can also lead to some teachable moments with your kids about some of these real life situations. Initially, I thought this could be a movie for the whole family, but upon further review, I would say only 14 and older.
Hannah – The funny thing is I actually do have an Uncle Buck.
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