The McCallister family is going on Christmas vacation to Paris; the youngest son Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) is having more child-like issues of everyone treating him as just a little kid who doesn’t know anything. On the day of the trip, Kevin is left behind, and now is home alone, and while he is home alone, Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) the “Wet Bandits”, two petty thieves in the neighborhood, are robbing people’s houses during the Christmas season, and the only person standing in Harry and Marv’s way is an eight year old boy who now has to defend his home and protect himself. So, “Merry Christmas little fella and open the door” and let’s see what happens in this house of mayhem.
Christmas is a time that has truly made some classic films for the season, and one of the top dogs of best Christmas movies is Home Alone, at least that is what I say. It has some of the most unlikely comedic duos in a comedy like Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Stern, of course, being the comedic aspect of the duo, and then Joe Pesci being the most unlikely and funny characters of the film. There are so many funny moments of the film and so many quotable lines in the film as well. Macaulay was an awesome child star of the film and had starred in another John Hughes film, Uncle Buck, starring John Candy. In that film, Macaulay plays the younger brother of two sisters, and they are being watched by their uncle they barely know because their parents are out of town. Back to Home Alone, Macaulay truly gives something to the role of Kevin, a more smart eight year old. As well as a kid just being a kid, he feels that he doesn’t belong because his older siblings pick on him, and they can sometimes be too mean. Lastly, the tone of this film is great, just an all around happy film, with some truly gut-busting moments in the film too. The one character that I truly think is for a serious character is Mr. Marley (Robert Blossom). He plays a character who is just trying to do a good thing for his neighborhood, and rumors from the neighborhood kids get spread around. So then kids are afraid of him. It’s another one of John Hughes’s dramatic characters who you don’t think is how they are, what they are portrayed to be. The stunt work in this film is awesome too, so many stunts in this film were all practical, Joe Pesci even did a stunt where Marv hits Harry with a crow bar to kill a spider, and misses. Joe had safety padding on and still got a bruise across his ribs by getting hit. Also, the stunts where Harry falls off the stairs, the stunt men were actually having a blast because Chris Columbus had tried to make it look as painful as possible, and without any padding, the stunt man was hitting a hard icy black top. The one, last thing I have to say about this film is how John Candy, a John Hughes regular stars in this film for a short time, and was paid a flat $414 as a favor to Hughes and even though Hughes had offered him some of the royalties of the film, he declined due to skepticism on the success of the film. I truly do recommend this movie for the holiday season if you’re looking for a winter classic because I gave this film a 10 overall rating and 5 crash helmets, 9 gold bars for acting, 10 gold bars for directing, and 10 gold bars for writing. I will see you the next time you want to come back to the movies.