Uptight advertising executive Neal Page just wants to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving Day. Unfortunately, every mode of transportation somehow fails him and he is stuck with Del Griffith, a traveling shower curtain ring salesman who won't shut up. Through delayed planes, broken down trains and burned-out automobiles Neal and Del go from being at each other's throats to friends.The film is probably best known for the sole scene responsible for its R rating; in which Neal, after being abandoned in a rental car parking lot where the car he rented isn't there, is forced to walk three miles back to the airport, whereupon he goes on a tirade against the rental agent. But it is not so much said tirade, as the rental agent's response to it. Roger Ebert probably puts it best:
"The other great comic set piece in the movie is responsible for its R rating; nothing else in the movie would qualify for other than PG-13. This is Neal's verbal symphony for the f-word, performed by the desperate man after a rental-car bus strands him three miles from the terminal without a car. He has to walk back through the snow and mud, crossing runways, falling down embankments, until he finally faces a chirpy rental agent (Edie McClurg) who is chatting on the phone about the need for tiny marshmallows in the ambrosia. When she sweetly asks Neal if he is disturbed, he unleashes a speech in which the adjectival form of the f-word supplies the prelude to every noun, including itself, and is additionally used as punctuation. When he finishes, the clerk has a two-word answer that supplies one of the great moments in movie dialogue."
This film featured John Candy and Steve Martin in one of the best comedy performances of the 1980s. The film was directed by John Hughes, best known for teen angst films until that time.
This film provides examples of:
Actor Allusion: In the airport terminal, Del is reading a book called "The Canadian Mounted". John Candy is (or was, before he died) Canadian.
The Alleged Car: After being sideswiped by two semi-trucks simultaneously and set on fire, it still ran.
State Trooper: Do you have any idea how fast you were going?
Del: Funny enough, I was just talking to my friend about that. Our speedometer has melted and as a result it's very hard to see with any degree of accuracy exactly how fast we were going.
And the radio somehow still worked as well. Practically nothing else on the dashboard survived, but the radio? No problem.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In Kansas, Neal lists this catalogue of Del's sins against his sanity: spilling beer all over the bed, smoking and messing up the bathroom (all in the hotel), not paying for his share of the stay, and talking nonstop on the plane from New York.
Avoid The Dreaded G Rating: The sole reason for Neal's rant. Hughes deliberately wanted the movie to be rated "R", because he felt that if it was rated lower, people would think he was just cranking out another teen angst film.
Brick Joke: Three of them—two with short airtimes, and one that had been hanging for about an hour—come together to great effect: A hotel clerk swaps their credit cards, Neal puts his wallet in a rental car's glove compartment asking Del to remind him to remove it, and Del flicks a cigarette out the window only for it to bounce back in unnoticed. Del reveals he had the credit card and returned it to Neal's wallet—just as the car catches fire incinerating the wallet.
During the movie, scenes of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner being prepared are shown. During The Stinger, you see the CEO of the company that Neal was giving the ad spiel to at the beginning of the movie, still hasn't decided on which campaign to use, with the dinner on the conference table near him. And, he was played by William Windom, Kevin Bacon's father-in-law from She's Having A Baby.
The Cameo: Three from other John Hughes movies; Kevin Bacon competes with Neal for a car, and then Ben Stein announces that all flights have been cancelled … and smiles. Finally, Edie McClurg has to endure the F-bomb rant.
Car Meets Hotel: The two back their burned-out car into the motel room wall, then quickly flee.
Celebrity Paradox: Averted, sort of: At the beginning of the film, Kevin Bacon has a cameo as another commuter who races Neal for a NYC taxicab. Later, there's a scene where Neal's wife is watching television; while you can't see the screen, the audio is of Kevin Bacon in a scene from another John Hughes film, She's Having a Baby.
Same with Dutch, another movie about a pair of dissimilar people from different class backgrounds struggling to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving … And also written by John Hughes.
If I Wanted X, I Would Y: "If I wanted a joke I'd follow you into the john and watch you take a leak."
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Neal's uptight and definitely something of a dick, but a lot of his tantrums can be put down to stress at his circumstances and the fact that Del, let's face it, is not the easiest of travelling companions. He's certainly genuinely devoted to his family.
Karma Houdini: The thief who steals Neal and Del's cash never appears again.
Stupid Statement Dance Mix: A rare in-media example! The first time we hear this song is when Neal's luck reaches an all-time low once he misses the fucking ride back to the fucking rental car headquarters and is fucking forced to walk down the fucking highway and across a fucking runway, and again, during the first part of the closing credits, after "Every Time You Go Away."
The Stinger: After the credits Neal's boss is still at his desk analyzing the ads, his Thanksgiving dinner sitting on his desk.
Technology Marches On: If mobile phones were as common back when this movie was made as they are today, this would have been a very short movie.
And funny enough, there is a cellular phone ad at the L-Train stop at the end of the film. Also worth noting Due Date borrows quite heavily from this film, and that's from 2010.
Neal may have been able to contact his wife but he would still have had the inability to get home in time for Thanksgiving, which was his biggest worry throughout the film. A phone wouldn't have made the planes run on time or stopped his car from catching fire.
… but it would have made some of the troubles associated with those situations resolve much more quickly—for example: on finding that the car he rented didn't exist, Neal could have called the rental company for a pick up.
Finding the next flight or the nearest hotel? There's an app for that.
Thanksgiving Day Story: The main premise of the story is Neal trying to get home for the Thanksgiving holiday, and that, no matter how dire things might seem, we all have something to be thankful for. It's delivered in such a way that even non-Americans can appreciate it.
Vitriolic Best Buds: Neal and Del gradually evolve from Type 1 (Del likes Neal, Neal detests Del) to Type 2 as Neal warms to Del and undergoes Character Development.
Wham Line: "I don't have a home. Marie's been dead for eight years."
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