I was surprised to see that the IMDB collective viewer rating wasn't lower; but even more surprised that most of the written reviews were high. I caught this film on cable tv, late at night, and gave it a look. Though Beth-Williams "Natalie's" and O'Neill's "Dutch" were presented as caring for each other, it was not really shared with us, except as a contrasted to the awful ex-husband's connection. I stayed tuned in, in expectation for more evidence of closeness and growth for them. Next up, the meeting of Dutch and Doyle, the son, was violent, but was presented as "comedy". As the meanness continued, I kept thinking that Dutch might later surprise me, and being the "adult", he'd learn more, and share that with the boy. Or, maybe the boy would inadvertently share his own buried softer side with Dutch, who'd then grow and share. I doubted Doyle could learn anything from Dutch's rampaging self-indulgence. If Dutch did grow more selfless and caring, I only saw it in a few occasionally warmer smiles (not those other glaring smiles he pushed onto Doyle). I welcomed the scene where Dutch tried to entertain Doyle with a private fireworks display. In this scene, the camera work seemed disconnected: it showed Dutch smiling, as in trying to get the kid to laugh along, too; but the jump cuts to the car then showed Doyle only looking at the dashboard. Yes, he looked at and liked the lights, but (based on the camera work) only when Doyle was being distracted by them too . I drew back, into my hope-wait-and-see posture. As Doyle and Dutch began to fall into a shared predicament, and were stranded out in the cold, I felt they might finally draw closer. Then, in a scene at a shelter for homeless folks, Doyle warmed up inside, making a kind gesture to one of the children. The child's mother (played so well, tho' very briefly, by L. Scott Caldwell) responded very lovingly to Doyle before he slept, and I thought the uplifting changes I'd hoped for him (and for Dutch) would finally kick in. It really never seemed to though. The ending prompted me to imagine a sequel. That 2nd movie would pick up after this film's final moment. In it, Dutch's JOY in inflicting some new pain on Doyle, would be responded to appropriately by his mother. Probably not a comedy this time. Overall, Natalie, and Dutch showed no signs to me of being close in any way. They may have each wanted some "good" things, but probably not the same things. At least Dutch got the son home. But Doyle's love of mom may have been discovered as a judgmental response to Dutch's behavior, and not really as a credit to Dutch's "help". Very few laughs for me.

To get to know his girlfriend's son (Ethan Embry), a working-class good guy (Ed O'Neill) volunteers to pick him up from a prep school -- only to learn that her son is not the nicest kid.This film has an impressive pedigree. The director, Peter Faiman, is not well known, but he was the director of "Crocodile Dundee", which makes him a small legend. And the writer was John Hughes, a giant in the industry."Dutch" received extremely poor reviews from critics, where it has a 14% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 3.7 out of 10 from 21 reviews. It was also a flop at the box office, grossing less than $5 million compared to its $17 million budget. Despite poor reception from critics, the film has garnered a cult following (as is common for Hughes films).

This is one of my favourite movies to watch at Christmas. Plot In A Paragraph: Dutch Dooley (The brilliant Ed O'Neill) goes on a cross country road trip to pick up his girl friends obnoxious twelve year old son Doyle (who is refusing to come home for Thanksgiving) from boarding school. I don't understand why this movie flopped as bad as it did, I for one love it, as do both of my kids 16 and 9. Ed O'Neill is as brilliant as he always is (this was released at the height of his TV show "Married With Children" popularity) to some he'll always be Al Bundy, but there is more to O'Neill than that. He is an absolute delight here. Ethan Embry is excellent as both sides to Doyle, it's always nice to see the lovely JoBeth Williams and Christopher McDonald is at his sleazy best whilst an attractive Ari Meyers leaves a lasting impression as Brock. Beautiful shot showing some great scenic shots of America this has a lot of laughs, I still laugh out loud at certain parts of this movie over twenty years later.

The chemistry between Ed O'Niel as 'Dutch' and Ethan Randall as 'Doyle' is excellent. It makes the movie work, whereas other lesser talents would have produced a ho-hum movie. The excellence is not always found in the script, and these two actors bring a mediocre script up to the level of excellent. The young actor 'Ethan Randall' that played Doyle is in reality none other than 'Ethan Embry', the actor who played 'Frank Smith' on the circa-2003 version of 'L.A. Dragnet', costarring with Ed O'Niel once again!Unfortunately, Ethan Embry was replaced in the second season of 'Dragnet' by an entire roster of new (and boring) actors...including the yet-to-be-desperate housewife Eva Longoria! Those two work well together.