Home Alone (1990)


When Kevin shouts “I wish my family would disappear”, he never expects it to happen.

Home Alone has become a movie classic. Although the action takes place at Christmas, it is not all that significant to this movie, the season (winter) is more important. However, this is fun viewing anytime. The plot is simple; a little boy’s family while rushing to get to the airport leaves him behind. A head count was taken but a kid from the neighborhood was counted instead of Kevin (Macaulay Culkin). This could happen in any family. Well, not really, but the movie is so funny that you overlook that and other improbables in Home Alone. Culkin is excellent as the precocious child who continues to get into trouble the night before the family heads off to spend Christmas in Paris. When Kevin’s mom sends him upstairs, he angrily responds saying he wishes that he had no family and that they would disappear. He never expected it to happen. However, the next morning Kevin comes downstairs and realizes that he is home alone.

Two not-so-clever burglars, Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), have been casing the neighborhood, when they fully understand that Kevin is in the house by himself, they think they have hit pay dirt. Instead of an easy heist, what they have on their hands is a miniature “MacGyver”. You remember the 1985 television show MacGyver. Secret agent Angus MacGyver did not carry a gun; in its place, he used ordinary items to get out of tight and life-threatening situations.

Little Kevin manages to outwit the bungling burglars at every turn. However, before that happens, he takes advantage of being in the house without parental supervision; he eats when and what he wants, watches late-night television and for some reason, he shaves.

After the family is settled on the plane, Kevin’s mom thinks that she has forgotten something. When she realizes that it is Kevin, she immediately begins to arrange to return home. She and the family run through the airport trying desperately to get a plane ticket for mom. To no avail, the family calls their neighbor’s homes and the police department, in hopes of getting someone to check on Kevin. But Kevin manages being home alone just fine, he shops, he does laundry and he keeps the burglars at bay.

When you see Macaulay Culkin in close-ups, you look at his face and know that he is more than a cute kid, he is an accomplished actor and that Home Alone was casting magic. Culkin appeared in the movie Uncle Buck (1989) with John Candy who is also in Home Alone

While not logical at all times, this movie is laugh-out-loud funny.

Rated PG.