Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) is about an advertising man trying to get home for Thanksgiving and failing. Neal leaves a meeting in New York to fly to Chicago. Snow diverts the flight to Wichita. Beside him is Del, a salesman of shower curtain rings: talkative, chaotic, and possessed of everything Neal cannot stand. They are stuck together. The next three days are a sequence of disasters: the wrong bus, a hire car, a car on fire, a train, the back of a lorry. The comedy runs on Neal's patience giving out. A scene at a car rental desk is the peak of it and consists almost entirely of the repetition of one word. But the film changes register in the middle. In a motel room Neal makes a cruel speech to Del and the man listens quietly; his reply is not a defence but an acceptance. After that scene the film becomes something else. In the final section something is revealed about Del and everything he has done takes on another meaning. John Hughes wrote and directed; it is the film where he moved from teenagers to adult comedy. Steve Martin and John Candy star. Hughes's first cut was very long and the journey was far more detailed than what remains; some of the removed material has never been released. It is regarded as John Candy's best work. It runs 93 minutes. Good for: road comedy, the eighties, and two hander films. Less good for: the swearing in one scene is heavy and the humour runs on repetition.