Common Sense Note
Parents should know this film deals with the loss of a parent, presents a child heroine with the mouth of a sailor, incompetent adult protectors, rampant, and senseless violence. Curly Sue and her dad have little respect for the law; they pick and choose which rules they follow.
Families inclined to watch this film are better off with films such as Home Alone or Paper Moon. But if they chose to watch it, they may want to use Curly Sue's and her father's behavior as an example of what not to do. What different choices would you make if faced with the same situations?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Randy White
Bill (James Belushi) and his daughter Curly Sue arrive in Detroit, broke and homeless. The two immediately set out to scam for food and lodging. Their first target is Grey (Kelly Lynch), a cruel lawyer who isn't married and has no children. When Bill gets himself bumped by Grey's car, the con artists are invited into the lawyer's fabulous home, where they quickly set up a con.
Grey discovers that Curly Sue can't read and takes the girl under her wing. Bill and Sue start eating and dressing in fancy style until Grey's stuffy boyfriend calls social services, which puts Bill and Sue's new situation in jeopardy.
Writer/director John Hughes hits a new low with this movie apparently aimed at the preteen set. Filled with superfluous profanity and gratuitous violence, there is little to redeem this exercise in vulgarity.
One 11-year-old boy found the movie annoying, especially the filler scenes made necessary by the lack of significant plot. Case in point: Curly Sue performs the National Anthem by obnoxiously braying all of the lyrics. However, the 11-year-old did laugh at the innumerable punches in the face. Adults and older kids, though, will find such slapstick ridiculous, even offensive.
The young viewer also thought the little girl "needed a swat," which was his impolite way of saying the precocious child will drive you up a wall with her feigned cuteness. And the same young fellow could easily predict the outcome of the incredibly obvious story.
The female lawyer character is also problematic--she is a single, childless woman who, according to the movie, only needs a man and child to make her less nasty, and more human. Kelly Lynch's inability to play comedy doesn't help the situation. The mawkish scenes between the little girl and Lynch are especially irksome.
Older children might check out Paper Moon, the original father/daughter grifters movie, starring Ryan O'Neal and daughter Tatum, as two vagabonds in the depression. A better movie is Home Alone with its much more engaging young lead. Of course, that blockbuster comes with similar warnings about a high violence quotient.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentThe little girl knows way too much about sex and boasts about it. The lawyer talks about photographs of a client in a compromising situation. |
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ViolenceCurly Sue whacks her father in the head with a stick. Three people repeatedly punch a man in the face. A man is deliberately thrown face-first from a car into a cement girder. These examples are indicative of the senseless violence that occurs throughout the movie. |
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LanguageThe child heroine swears often and with wide variety. The adults offer no example. |
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Social BehaviorMisbehavior abounds with no real consequences. |
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